"The night was as sweet as wine: I had come, on 8 April, to al-Qusayr, 22 miles south of Homs, to report on another chapter of the Syrian war. Instead, 152 days of imprisonment followed, in small dark rooms where I battled against time and fear and endless humiliations; against hunger and against the absence of pity. Where I endured two mock executions and the silence of God, my family and the outside world.
I was a hostage in Syria, betrayed by a revolution that had lost its way and become the property of fanatics and bandits. In this place, when the hostage weeps, everyone laughs at the spectacle of his pain and sees it as a sign of weakness. Syria has become the Country of Evil, the land where evil triumphs and thrives like grapes on the vine under a Middle Eastern sun, and where evil displays all its aspects: greed, hatred, fanaticism, the absence of mercy; where even children and the old rejoice in their malevolence. My captors prayed to their God standing next to me, the suffering prisoner. They prayed content, without remorse and attentive to their rituals. What were they saying to their God?
We had arrived at al-Qusayr in a convoy bringing supplies from the Free Syrian Army, after a long night driving without lights through the mountains because the roads were controlled by the regime. The city had already been devastated and half-destroyed by air bombardment and we decided to go back to where we had come from to try to get to Damascus.
On leaving the city, we were stopped by two pick-up trucks full of masked men. They made us get out, took us to a house and beat us up, claiming to be police officers working for the regime. In the following days [I and a fellow hostage, Belgian teacher Pierre Piccinin da Prata] discovered that they were fervent Islamists who prayed five times a day to their God in solemn tones. On the Friday, they listened to the sermon of a preacher urging jihad against Bashar al-Assad. The decisive proof came when we were bombarded from the air. It was clear we were being held by rebel forces.
The leader of the group holding us was a self-appointed "emir" who liked to be addressed as Abu Omar, a nickname. He had formed his brigade by taking people from the area, mostly bandits rather than Islamists or revolutionaries. Abu Omar gave an Islamic gloss to the criminal activities of his band and had links with al-Farouk, the group that then took control of us. Al-Farouk is a well-known brigade in the Syrian revolution, part of the Syrian National Council, and its representatives have held meetings with European governments. The west trusts them, but I learned to my cost that we are talking about a new and disturbing phenomenon in the revolt: the emergence of groups of Somali-style bandits who use an Islamic veneer and the context of the revolution to control pieces of territory, extort money from the population, kidnap people and generally fill their boots.
To begin with, we were held in a house in the suburbs of al-Qusayr. The district was bombed and we were moved to another house. When the same thing happened again, we were handed over for a week to the Syrian al-Qaida, Jabhat al-Nusra. This was the only time we were to be treated like human beings and even, in some ways, kindly. For example, they gave us the same food as they ate themselves. Al-Qaida fighters at war live an ascetic existence. They are fanatics who hope to construct an Islamic state in Syria and then throughout the Middle East. But towards their enemies – and being white, Christian and western, we were their enemies – they have a sense of honour and respect. Al-Nusra is on the list of terrorist organisations compiled by America, but they were the only ones who showed us any respect. Then we were handed back to Abu Omar …
One day Abu Omar was sitting like a lord under a tree, surrounded by his little court of fighters. He called me because he wanted me to sit down by his side. He wanted to pretend to be our friend to deceive some others in the area who were wondering who these westerners were, so badly dressed and physically wasted after two months of prison. I asked him for his phone, telling him that my loved ones almost certainly thought I was dead and that he was destroying my life and my family. He laughed, and said there was no signal in the area. It wasn't true. A soldier from the Free Syrian army gave me a phone in front of Abu Omar. It was the only act of mercy towards me in the 152 days. No one else demonstrated what we would call pity, mercy or compassion. Even the children and old people tried to hurt us. In Syria I encountered the land of evil. I managed to talk to home for just 20 seconds. After the desperate cry I heard on the other end of the line, it went dead.
They kept us like animals, lying on straw mattresses in tiny rooms with closed windows, notwithstanding the terrible heat. They gave us their leftovers to eat. I'd never experienced the daily humiliations relating to simple things like not being able to go to the toilet, or having to ask for everything and always hearing the answer "no". I think there was a deep satisfaction for them in seeing the rich westerner reduced to the status of a beggar.
The first time we tried to escape, our guard had probably fallen asleep. We left the house and headed to what we thought were the lights of al-Qusayr. After 200 metres we were caught. The second time we were in another area, during the final phase of our detention. Our captors were often careless about looking after their stuff. We got our hands on two grenades and hid them in a sofa. One night they failed to lock the door. We left and tried to make it to the Syrian-Turkish border at Bab al-Hawa after stopping a car using Kalashnikovs also taken from the house. But there was a checkpoint. We were taken back to our captors to face our punishment.
They shut us in a storage room with our hands tied behind our backs and kept us there for three days. Our value to them was as merchandise. Merchandise cannot be destroyed without losing the proper price for it. You feel like a sack of grain, something that has value only to the extent it can be sold. They can kick you but they can't kill you, because if they finish you off they can't sell you.
Twice they put me up against the wall. We were near al-Qusayr. One of them approached with a pistol. He showed me that it was loaded and then told me to put my head against the wall. He put the pistol against my temple. Long moments followed. You become ashamed of yourself. You hear the breath of the man next to you, who exudes the pleasure of having another man completely in his power. He knows you are afraid. So you become angry about being afraid. It's similar to when children, who can be terribly cruel, pull the tail off a lizard or the legs from a fly. The same terrible ferocity.
For a laugh, our captors would tell us every now and then: "It'll be two or three days, or a week, and then you'll be free in Italy." It was just to see our desperation when they added the word "Inshallah" (God willing). It was their way of lying without seeming to lie. They continually said "bukrah" (tomorrow), and then the next day nobody went anywhere. Finally, I sensed the moment had really come. This time there was no "Inshallah". They made us get out of the cars on the other side of the border, telling us to walk. I thought they might shoot us in the back. It was dark, it was a Sunday night, after sunset. I thought to myself that if I heard the sound of guns preparing to fire I would throw myself on the ground. I was sure they were going to eliminate us. I had seen their faces, I knew their names. But no one used their Kalashnikov. Inshallah, this was the moment of our liberation."
