The last hour of captivity for Alan Johnston was perhaps the worst. His guard burst into his room in the early hours of Wednesday morning and told him to get dressed. His regular captor, “an extraordinarily moody man with dark rages”, had been joined by some new gunmen who looked “totally wired”.
“I thought, this is bad news,” said Johnston, who, on his first day of freedom on Wednesday gave a remarkable account of his 114 days of captivity in Gaza, an experience which he likened to being “buried alive”. The BBC journalist, who looked tired but ebullient, was freed just after 3am local time following intense negotiations between Hamas and his kidnappers, the Dogmush family and their militia, the Army of Islam.
“The last 16 weeks were by far the worst days of my life,” Johnston (45) said. “It was like being buried alive, removed from the world. It was occasionally terrifying, with people who were both unpredictable and dangerous.” His first act on being freed was to call his parents. He also asked for a razor — to get rid of that “just kidnapped look” — and a grilled steak.
He said being free was “fantastic”. “You want to do everything at the same time, to read books and newspapers, go to the movies, go to the beach and sit in the sun, and eat and talk.”
The road to freedom had begun when his guard and the new gunmen took him to a car for what was to be “the most appalling ride of my life”. The guards were hysterical and swore at each other as they drove through Gaza City. They were petrified of leaving their stronghold and crossing the Hamas checkpoints which have become a part of life in Gaza. They took their anger out on Johnston, slapping him and banging his head against the car door, the first acts of physical violence he had endured since being kidnapped.
Eventually, the car stopped and Johnston emerged to a crowd of gunmen. “There is always a large group of gunmen when you get out of a car in Gaza but then I saw a photographer and things looked better. Then I saw Fayad Abu Shamala, my old friend who I have worked with for two years at the BBC, and I knew it was over,” he said.
The four-month ordeal had begun with what seemed like a mundane ride home. “It was a journey that I made a thousand times. I turned into my quiet street and then a car lurched towards me. At first I thought it was just Gaza-driving but then a man appeared at one side of the car with a pistol,” he said. “I have covered 27 kidnappings and I knew what it was about. It was surreal. It was as if I had lived it before.”
Johnston was bundled into the car, handcuffed, hooded, robbed, taken to a house and left on the floor for two hours. He later met the leader of his kidnappers. “Clearly he had a very jihadi agenda and saw me as a prisoner in the war between Muslims and non-Muslims,” he said. In that first conversation he was assured that he would not be killed or tortured.
But that assurance took on a different complexion when he was woken at three in the morning, handcuffed and hooded again and led outside. “Then you wonder what’s going to happen,” he said. He was taken to a different house where he began his incarceration with the man who was to be his main guard and “who barely spoke to me and then would fly into rages and slam doors”.
But at times the guard showed acts of kindness, allowing Johnston to watch television and use a kitchen and bathroom next to his room.
After two weeks, Johnston was allowed a radio, which transformed his captivity. He was able to listen to the BBC World Service, the organisation where he had worked for 16 years, and hear the news of protests and efforts to free him. “It was amazing to be lying in solitary confinement and hearing about demonstrations in Jakarta and Beijing. It was the most extraordinary boost. I felt at one point all the journos in the world were coming to my rescue,” he said.
He was well fed, but the spicy Gazan food disagreed with him and he became ill. Even though he was then given simple foods, such as bread, cheese and eggs, he fell ill again — to the indifference of his guards. “I felt they would be perfectly capable of watching television while I died,” he said.
Johnston was left mostly on his own to listen to his radio and battle with despair. One message to him came from Terry Waite, who was held captive in Beirut for four years, which advised him that he would find untapped strengths to see him through his ordeal. The kidnappers seemed unconcerned by the commotion they were causing in the outside world. “They did not seem remotely worried and it did not look like they would be rumbled. I began to think that they were a group so small that they would not be discovered,” he said.
But Gaza was about to undergo its biggest political change in the three years that Johnston had spent there. Clashes between Fatah and Hamas descended into open war, which Hamas quickly won. “When Hamas took charge of the situation they became much more nervous. I began to feel that perhaps the end of my ordeal was in sight,” he said.
But the gang were not ready to give up Johnston. As Hamas increased pressure on the stronghold, the gang brought Johnstone a briefcase. “They brought in a briefcase that a businessman on the tube in London might carry,” he said. It contained an explosive belt normally worn by a suicide bomber and Johnston was forced to wear it as they filmed a video in which they warned Hamas that they would kill Johnston if they attacked their stronghold.
But Johnston’s instinct was right, his ordeal was nearly over, although on he was still finding it hard to believe he was free. “It’s hard to believe even now that I will not wake up again in the same room,” he said.
He also drew attention to the plight of the five British hostages, four security guards and a computer specialist, kidnapped in Baghdad in May. “My heart goes out to anybody in that situation,” he said. “I so much hope they will have a day like mine.” – Guardian Unlimited Â