The British hostage threatened with beheading by Islamic State was seized by “professional” gunmen who were targeting westerners, according to a witness to the kidnapping.
David Haines, 44, was taken hostage while working for a French charity, the Agency for Technical Co-operation and Development (Acted), in northern Syria in March 2013.
Earlier this week, the father of two appeared alongside a masked jihadist in a video showing the beheading of the American journalist Steven Sotloff, with a warning that Mr Haines would be next.
A local translator said that the Scotsman and an Italian colleague had been seized during a three-day reconnaissance trip to identify locations for new refugee camps, by Islamic State jihadists in two cars .
The Syrian man, who was not named, told The Independent that the aid workers were driving back via Aleppo towards the Turkish border from the nearby Atmeh refugee camp and had chosen a shorter route along a farm road when they were attacked.
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He said: “Two very fast cars came up behind — one overtook and the other stayed behind. They shouted at us to get out of the car in formal Arabic. They were wearing black masks and were so professional.”
The translator continued: “They knew that two of us were Syrians and they knew who else was in the car. One of them put a gun to my head and threatened me not to tell anyone what I had seen.”
He described how the kidnapping took just seconds and said that the jihadists put the two captured men in the boot of their car before shooting out the tyres of the charity’s vehicle.
“No one thought that would happen so close to the border. All of us were just looking forward to getting back to Turkey,” the translator said.
Describing Mr Haines, he said: “I remember he was really worried for the people [in one camp] because they didn’t have toilets.
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“He stopped by every child though and made a joke with them. He was always smiling and listening to the refugees. Those three days, I was with the best guy in aid work.”
Mr Haines has a teenage daughter in Scotland from a previous marriage, while his current wife, Dragana Prodanovic Haines, and four-year-old daughter live in Sisak, Croatia. Their house is being protected by armed police because of intense press interest and Mrs Haines, a social media editor, has not told her young daughter what has happened in order to “protect her”.
Yesterday the charity that employed Mr Haines said that it was “deeply shocked” by the video of him and described the threats on his life as “intolerable”.
Acted said that Mr Haines had worked as “a humanitarian” since 1999 in the Balkans, the Middle East and Africa.
It said that at the time of his capture he was working to help “tens of thousands of people affected by the crisis” created by the long-running civil war.
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The charity added: “Acted is deeply shocked by the images broadcast earlier this week. The threats on David Haines’s life are intolerable. We have been mobilised from day one with David’s family. More than ever, we are pursuing our efforts, and our thoughts are with David and his family.”