Mystery still shrouds the fate of British photographer John Cantlie who was captured by Islamic State in Syria – with arguments over whether he was a hero or a traitor.
He was taken hostage by ISIS in Syria in November 2012 then held by a gang who were dubbed ‘The Beatles’ by fellow militants due to them being from the UK.
The last public sighting of Mr Cantlie – who converted to Islam during his captivity – was in a 2016 video but a Kurdish official said in 2019 that he was still believed to be in Syria. He has never been found.
Unlike two other British hostages – aid workers Alan Henning and David Haines – Mr Cantlie was not murdered by Mohammed Emwazi on camera.
Emwazi became known as Jihadi John as part of the Beatles labelling.
It has been suggested that Mr Cantlie’s skills as a journalist were exploited by ISIS in an attempt to lend credibility to propaganda films.
In a video which emerged in March 2016, a thin-looking Cantlie was seen speaking about the bombing of Mosul University in Iraq.
He had previously appeared in another video in 2014 wearing an orange prisoner jumpsuit and revealing how prisoners were waterboarded for trying to escape.
Missing British photographer John Cantlie was captured by a gang and handed over to ISIS militants in 2012 – he is pictured previously here in Aleppo, Syria
He was then seen in a video released online in September 2014, sharing ISIS propaganda
He also read out purported emails between IS and the families of American captives who complained about Washington’s refusal to negotiate their release.
Mr Cantlie, from Haslemere in Surrey and who would now be 55, worked in the past for publications including the Sunday Times, the Sun and the Sunday Telegraph.
He was captured in July 2012 but rescued by members of the Free Syrian Army, only to be kidnapped again later that year.
A freed ISIS prisoner later told of how Mr Cantlie suffered ‘weeks and weeks’ of torture after he tried to escape his terrorist captors.
Some 26 hostages were held between 2012 and 2015, when the Islamic State group controlled large swathes of Iraq and Syria.
Now there are mounting questions about Mr Cantlie’s motivations following his capture – as well as uncertainty about whether he remains alive.
He is the subject of a new three-part BBC documentary series, following on from discussions in the podcast Last Man Standing.
War correspondent Martin Fletcher has written accusing Cantlie of becoming after his capture ‘a mouthpiece for Isis propaganda, a sort of Islamic Lord Haw-Haw generating disgust back in Britain’.
This still is taken from a video released by Islamic State in March 2016, said to show John Cantlie in the Iraqi city of Mosul
He described Cantlie as being seen as ‘a loud, cocky, macho young man who craved adventure, loved the idea of being a war photographer and, at least initially, did not take the dangers nearly as seriously as he should have’.
Mr Cantlie has nevertheless received praise following his captures including from Spanish journalist Javier Espinosa who previously called him ‘very brave’, adding: ‘He wasn’t afraid of anything.’
Former special forces member Kevin Godlington tells the new documentary series how Mr Cantlie was ‘naive and a maverick’.
Mr Godlington also said of the ISIS-shared online videos in which the captured photographer appeared: ‘He was doing everything in his power just to stay alive.’
Former Prime Minister and ex-Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron has told the programme: ‘I don’t want to judge him. He was in appalling circumstances.
‘He had to make choices and who knows what any of us would do in those circumstances?’
And Mr Fletcher wrote in the Times of Mr Cantlie: ‘He may have taken foolish risks as a journalist, and endangered others, but as a hostage he showed great courage and resourcefulness and survived nearly five years.’
There have been reports in 2017 and 2019 that Mr Cantlie was still alive, although his family said in 2022 they believed him to be dead.
The Iraqi Al-Sura News Agency reported in July 2017 that Mr Cantlie had been killed in an air strike in Mosul.
But a Syrian Democratic Forces official suggested in January 2019 Mr Cantlie could still be living, in Syria’s Deir ez-Zor governmate.
And the following month, Britain’s then-Security Minister – later Defence Secretary – Ben Wallace suggested Mr Cantlie might remain alive in Syria.
The Mail has previously revealed details about the capture and torturous conditions faced by Mr Cantlie and US journalist James Foley after being abducted in 2012.
A news blackout about the kidnapping was put in place at the request of the British government and Mr Cantlie’s family.
But the blackout was shattered when he was forced to record a bizarre propaganda video by his captors, entitled ‘Lend Me Your Ears’, which was distributed on social media by the terror group Islamic State’s official media outfit.
Cantlie – who had accompanied Prince Harry and Prince William on a charity motorcycle trip through Africa in 2008 – was forced to read from a prepared script.
He was seen promising to reveal the ‘lies’ told by the Western media about his Islamic State captors and inviting viewers to ‘stay tuned’ for future programmes.
John Cantlie is pictured with the Prince Harry and Prince William in South Africa in 2008, when they took part in the Enduro Africa charity ride
The hostage, appearing in what looked like a professional television studio, also pledged to reveal details about negotiations between the Islamist kidnappers and European governments, which resulted in the release of up to 15 European hostages for at least £30m.
Mr Foley, his friend and colleague, was beheaded by Islamic State in a horrific propaganda video released in August 2014.
The Mail told how Mr Cantlie and his fellow hostages were put through ‘a living hell’, according to security sources with intimate knowledge of their ordeal – and were even been forced to fight with each other for the entertainment of the jihadis.
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After Mr Cantlie and Mr Foley were seized, they were moved from prison to prison by hostage takers before being sold to ISIS. The torture began almost immediately, overseen by British jidhadists who became known by the hostages as ‘The Beatles’.
Both Cantlie and Foley were ‘water boarded’ – an interrogation technique that simulates drowning, in which the victim is strapped down with their mouth and nose covered with cloth, before large quantities of water are poured over their faces.
They were also electrocuted and shot with Tasers, a high-voltage stun-gun which causes temporary paralysis, after being dragged from their cells to be ‘punished’ for any behaviour their captors deemed a breach of their rules.
One source told the Mail at the time: ‘The water boarding was not every day – maybe two or three times.
‘The British jihadis did the most appalling stuff in the world – they were psychopathic.’
But it was also suggested they were at one point taken off the job of guarding the Westerners because of their enthusiasm.
The source said: ‘The British jihadis got into trouble because they were considered to be so brutal. That’s why they were taken away.’
‘Jihadi John’ Emwazi was one of the most prominent members of the so-called ISIS Beatles and was regularly seen carrying out executions in their beheading videos.
He took part in the executions of UK aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning, American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff and US humanitarian worker Peter Kassig.
The terrorist, who was born in Kuwait and grew up in Queen’s Park, west London, was charged with 27 counts of murder and five counts of hostage taking in November 2014.
He was killed in a Hellfire missile drone strike in Syria in 2015.
Mohammed Emwazi, who became known as ‘Jihadi John’, brandishing a knife. He was killed by a drone strike in 2015
Aine Lesley Davis, dubbed ‘Jihadi Paul’, was born in 1984 and is believed to have spent the early years of his childhood in Hammersmith, west London, where his mother Fay Rodriquez lived.
He was one of 13 children his father had by four different women.
The former Tube driver, with drug dealing and firearms convictions to his name, converted to Islam while in prison.
In 2014, his wife Amal el-Wahabi was convicted of funding terrorism after she persuaded a friend to try and smuggle £16,000 ($21,000) in cash in her underwear to him.
Davis was captured by Turkish security officials in 2015 and was later found guilty of being a senior member of a terrorist organisation – being sentenced to seven and a half years in prison.
‘Jihadi George’ Alexanda Kotey, was born to a Ghanaian father and a Greek Cypriot mother and grew up in Shepherd’s Bush, west London.
Before his radicalisation, he is thought to have worked as a drug dealer before converting to Islam in his early 20s.
In 2012, he left for Syria where the US claims he was involved in beheadings and known for administering ‘exceptionally cruel torture methods’, including electronic shocks.
Alexanda Amon Kotey, left, and El Shafee Elsheikh speak during an interview with The Associated Press at a security center in Kobani, Syria, on March 30 2018
He is also accused of acting as an ISIS recruiter who convinced a number of other British extremists to join the terror group.
Kotey was captured in Syria while trying to escape to Turkey in 2018 and was held in a US military center in Iraq.
The UK government wanted him tried in the US, where officials believe there is a more realistic chance of prosecution than in the UK.
He was extradited in 2021 and pleaded guilty to terror offences in September that year before being sentenced to life in prison, 15 years of which to be spent in the US before transferral to the UK.
El Shafee Elsheikh, branded ‘Jihadi Ringo’, was born in Sudan but grew up in west London and was the final member of the four British terrorists who fled to join ISIS.
He has been linked to the killings of a number of hostages after heading to Syria to join the extremist group.
He was captured along with Kotey when they tried to flee to Turkey in 2018 and then transported to the US where he faced charges relating to terrorism and beheading Western hostages.
Elsheikh is currently serving life in a high-security US jail after he was convicted in 2022 of hostage-taking and conspiring to murder.
It was reported last August that he had applied to be switched from his Colorado prison to a UK jail under the International Prisoner Transfer Program, claiming he would like to be closer to family and friends.
Families of the victims expressed fears Elsheikh could be moved to somewhere such as London’s Belmarsh where convicts have access to luxuries like TVs and games consoles and can mix with other extremists.
A US notice sent to victims’ relatives said: ‘This is to inform you that El Shafee Elsheikh has applied to transfer to the UK, the country of which the inmate is a national.
‘The United States has prisoner transfer relationships with many countries.
‘These treaties permit foreign nationals to apply to transfer and serve their sentence in their home country. Before making a decision, the US collects information about the prisoner, the views of law enforcement and any views provided by victims.’
The Ministry of Justice said at the time: ‘We have not received any application from the US, but we have the right to refuse any request.’
The Beatles’ drummer Sir Ringo Starr said of the jihadi group in 2015: ‘What they are doing out there is against everything The Beatles ever stood for.’
