A DANISH photographer kidnapped by Isis and held hostage for 13 months has provided the first witness description of the British terrorist known as Jihadi John murdering a “western spy” with a bullet in the back of the head.
Jihadi John, whose real name is Mohammed Emwazi, forced Daniel Rye Ottosen, 26, and other western hostages, to participate in a gruesome video in which the victim, a north African, was killed in cold blood.
Describing his ordeal in a book published in Denmark last week, Rye tells how he and the five others were paraded by a British group within Isis known to their captives as the Beatles.
While the Europeans were made to stand holding signs saying “I don’t want to end like him”, the blindfolded man was forced to his knees next to an empty grave. “John stood behind him with a Glock pistol. Ringo filmed from the other side of the grave, while George choreographed the whole scene,” Rye recounts.
“John took a few steps back and shot the man in the back of the head . . . then he walked to the grave, trained his pistol on the already dead man in the grave and sent eight bullets into his upper body.”
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Rye tells Puk Damsgard, author of the book, Can You See the Moon, Daniel?, that he was relieved that the north African, thought to be in his fifties, appeared to die instantly. “The Beatles had talked about beheadings so much it was a relief to see that they could also use guns,” he recalls.
Rye was released in June last year just before five fellow hostages — including two Britons — were beheaded.
Emwazi, a Kuwaiti-born Londoner, achieved notoriety by appearing in videos threatening the doomed men with a knife but was not shown killing them.
On the return journey from the site of the north African’s murder, one of the Beatles told Rye he would be the next to die if his family did not provide the €2m (£1.5m) ransom demanded by Isis. Footage of the killing was sent to them, but was not released publicly.
Rye’s family raised the money through bank loans and appeals to friends. An intermediary facilitated Rye’s release by delivering the cash to the captors.
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The detainees suffered badly at the hands of their British jailers. Rye was savagely beaten by Emwazi, who also forced him to box and dance the tango with him in a bizarre ritual of humiliation that culminated in a threat to cut off his nose.
The prisoners forged friendships and tried to establish a daily routine in the prison in the Syrian city of Raqqa. Rye taught the others gymnastics, while yoga classes were led by Steven Sotloff, an Israeli-American, who was later beheaded.
James Foley, the American journalist killed in August last year, dictated a letter to Rye that he learnt by heart and passed to the murdered man’s family.