John Cantlie - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

John CantlieDisappearedStatusOccupation

John Cantlie at Nangalam base, Pech Valley, Afghanistan 2012

November 22, 2012[1]Syria[1]
Apparent hostage of the Islamic State
War photographer and correspondent

John Cantlie is a British war photographer and correspondent who was kidnapped in Syria with James Foley in November 2012.[2] Cantlie was previously kidnapped in Syria in July 2012 and was rescued a week later.

Family history[edit]

John Cantlie is the great grandson of Dr James Cantlie, who in 1896 was instrumental in the protection of the famous Chinese revolutionary Sun Yat Sen who might otherwise have been executed by the Chinese secret service. His grandfather, Colonel Kenneth Cantlie, designed the China Railways KF locomotive, at 260 tons the largest locomotive of post-war China that remained in service until 1972.

First abduction[edit]

He was reportedly kidnapped by British Islamic extremists while crossing into Syria from Turkey on July 19, 2012, near Bab al-Hawa. Along with Dutch photographer Jeroen Oerlemans, Cantlie was shot whilst trying to escape their captors. In an interview with The Sun newspaper on 26 August 2012, Cantlie said it was "every Englishman's duty to try and escape if captured." Both photographers claimed they were about to be handed over to a jihad unit affiliated with al-Qaeda for ransom when they were rescued by the Free Syrian Army. Cantlie's apparent kidnapping is the first recorded case of a British journalist being held, shot and then rescued from fellow Britons during the revolutions of the Arab Spring.

The pair were reportedly held by the jihad group Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) whose leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, encouraged British Muslims to join the group to fight a Holy War against the government of Bashar al-Assad.[citation needed] It is alleged that the group used the cover of online aid agencies to smuggle European fighters across the Turkish border into Syria. In an account in The Sunday Times on 5 August 2012, Cantlie wrote:

"I ended up running for my life, barefoot and handcuffed, while British jihadists - young men with south London accents - shot to kill. They were aiming their Kalashnikovs at a British journalist, Londoner against Londoner in a rocky landscape that looked like the Scottish Highlands. Bullets kicking up dirt as I ran. A bullet through my arm, another grazing my ear. And not a Syrian in sight. This wasn't what I had expected."

Oerlemans was shot in the left leg and Cantlie in the left arm during their escape attempt, Cantlie suffering ulnar nerve entrapment (loss of feeling and use to the hand) as a result. In an account of the shooting, Oerlemans says some of the British Muslims stood over him holding a rock as though to smash it onto his head and shouted, "die, kafir, die!" Oerlemans then stated that "the British guys were the most vindictive of them all." They were taken back to the camp where a fighter who claimed to be an NHS doctor stabilized them and treated their wounds. The pair said the doctor gave them information and extra food. Cantlie later wrote in the October 2012 edition of FHM magazine that this was Stockholm Syndrome, in which a hostage befriends one or more of their captors.

It's claimed that they were subjected to mock executions, beaten and at one point believed they would be beheaded when their captors started sharpening knives. "I honestly thought that was it," Cantlie wrote in The Sunday Times.

Then on 26 July 2012, one week after being kidnapped, they were rescued by four members of the Free Syrian Army. The rebels came into the camp shooting their weapons and held at least one jihad fighter at gunpoint while Cantlie and Oerlemans were helped into a waiting vehicle. Both photographers had to be assisted as their feet had been seriously injured when they tried to escape and neither could walk. They had lost all their camera equipment, passports and clothes in the incident, and were smuggled back across the border at a crossing used primarily by Syrian refugees. They were initially treated by a medic for The New York Times in Antakya before being debriefed by Turkish and then British intelligence.

On 9 October 2012 an individual suspected of being involved in the kidnap was arrested at Heathrow airport after arriving on a flight from Egypt.[3]

This was Cantlie's second visit to Syria. In March 2012 he became the first Western photographer to witness first-hand an incursion by government ground troops into a city when T72 heavy tanks rolled into the city of Saraquib in Idlib province and started shelling indiscriminately. In a feature in the Sunday Telegraph published on March 31, Cantlie wrote: "Then the tanks opened fire. Fist-sized pieces of shrapnel sliced through the air, decapitating one rebel immediately. His rifle clattered to the ground as his friends dragged his headless torso from the line of fire." To illustrate what the Syrian rebels were up against, Cantlie took a photograph looking down the barrel of an advancing T72. In an interview he later described taking the picture as "not terribly comfortable."

Second abduction[edit]

Cantlie had not appeared in print or on social media since late 2012 and the trial against one of his alleged captors collapsed in 2013 when he could not be summoned as a witness.[4] This was because, in November 2012,[2] Cantlie was abducted a second time along with American journalist James Foley. They had reportedly been working together on a film about Cantlie’s first abduction.[5]

September 2014[edit]

A video posted by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, titled "Lend Me Your Ears", was released on 18 September 2014, in which Cantlie discusses British foreign policy and his captivity.[6] Cantlie compared the positions of American and British governments in hostage negotiations to that of certain European nations, who pay for the release of their citizens, and claimed that the video was the first of a series of films in which he will discuss the views of IS.[6]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ abMezzofiore, Gianluca (September 18, 2014). "John Cantlie Video: British Photojournalist 'Kidnapped with James Foley'". IBT. Retrieved September 18, 2014. 
  2. ^ abSeibel, Mark; Prothero, Mitchell (September 18, 2014). "British hostage John Cantlie, seized by Islamic State with James Foley, appears in new video". Mcclatchydc.com. Retrieved September 18, 2014. 
  3. ^Sengupta, Kim (10 October 2012). "Suspect arrested at Heathrow". The Independent. 
  4. ^"Syria Kidnap Case Against Doctor Dropped by Prosecution". BBC News. 11 November 2013. Retrieved 19 September 2014. 
  5. ^Meek, James Gordon; Schwartz, Rhonda (18 September 2014). "Missing British Hostage John Cantlie Surfaces Alive in New ISIS Video". ABC News. Retrieved 19 September 2014. 
  6. ^ ab"Video of British hostage John Cantlie released". BBC News Online. 18 September 2014. Retrieved 18 September 2014. 

External links[edit]

Persondata
NameCantlie, John
Alternative names
Short descriptionPhotographer
Date of birth
Place of birth
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Place of death

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cantlie