by Puk Damsgård
None of them believed that Marc had said too much, which was indeed confirmed later. It seemed more likely that the Beatles had disposed of a prisoner for whom they knew they couldn’t get any money.
On his twenty-fifth birthday Daniel made a makeshift roulade for his fellow prisoners out of bread and jam, which he rolled together. He cut it into seventeen equal slices, which he shared around the cell. The others wished him a happy birthday and Pierre and James gave him an extra-long hug.
The Beatles also thought his birthday should be celebrated.
‘We have a present for you from your parents,’ said Ringo, going over to Daniel, who was sitting with his head facing the wall. A searing pain rose from the pit of his stomach as Ringo slammed his boot into Daniel’s ribs.
‘Your parents think this is some kind of gymnastics camp you’re at, so they’ve asked us to wish you a happy birthday!’ he shouted.
Twenty-five birthday kicks ensued, with short intervals between each one.
Daniel swallowed his screams as he shifted about to protect himself from the blows.
When his hands instinctively moved to protect his torso, Ringo shouted at him to lift his hands up again.
Some hours later something bulged out from Daniel’s ribs that looked like a blue tennis ball.
· * ·
Late at night on 11 March Anita’s mobile rang. Susanne and Kjeld sounded extremely upset at the other end. They had just received an email with an attachment.
‘It’s a dead man’s face,’ said Kjeld.
The man lay with his head in the desert sand and blood in his beard; it looked as if he had been shot in his right eye. They didn’t know who the man was, but the kidnappers wrote that he had ‘shared a cold cell with your son’.
DO NOT WASTE OUR TIME with useless messages that will not benefit you or your son the slightest way! You mention nothing about our 2,000,000 EURO demand and yet you’re asking about written messages/videos and sending birthday wishes!! You are digging your son’s shallow grave with your STUPIDITY!
They also mentioned Marc’s email address, together with a warning that Daniel could come home in a body bag, because ‘our lions are hungry to let Danish blood flow in revenge for the Mohammed cartoons’.
Kjeld tried to reassure himself with the thought that so many people were killed in Syria that it could be a picture of anyone. But he still stayed home from work the next day and Susanne agreed to give Arthur her password so that in the future the family wouldn’t open any attachments before Arthur had checked them.
Anita drove to Hedegård the next morning to kick off the fundraising.
It was time for the family to make a higher ransom offer.
The Experiment
The dining table in the living room in Hedegård was littered with small notes with names, phone numbers and email addresses of people in Daniel’s and the family’s networks. Kjeld and Susanne noted down all the contacts that they could possibly think of.
Anita sat at the computer, editing the draft of a letter that Arthur had sent her. She had experience from her job with seeking funding for environmental projects and, even though this was something quite different, she knew a lot about raising money.
The letter was to be sent to wider, but still controlled, circles of people they knew and trusted, for example, via the Listserv at Vesterlund School and the gymnastics clubs. It was crucial that the wording struck the right tone and that she didn’t reveal too much, and she hoped that those who knew Daniel would be willing to help.
‘This request is about a human life in danger,’ began the letter.
After this, there was information about why Daniel had travelled to Syria and why the case was very sensitive:
The papers you are holding are marked ‘confidential’, which doesn’t restrict you in a legal sense, but we hope that you will treat this request confidentially as, in a worst-case scenario, it could cost Daniel his life if the information is made public.
If recipients wished to offer their support, they should go through the family’s lawyer, Oluf Engell, from the law firm Bruun & Hjejle, which was helping to manage the account where donors could anonymously deposit an amount.
There is a professional and competent team behind this fundraising and everything is being done properly and in accordance with all laws and regulations. The money goes into a trust account that only the lawyer can manage. We as a family and the public will never know who has contributed to the cause.
According to the Danish Penal Code, section 114b, it is an offence to give, collect or otherwise disseminate money to terrorist organizations. This law was passed in order to prevent people in Denmark from helping to finance terrorism. Denmark hadn’t yet put ISIS on its list of terrorist organizations, even though judicially it would take only a couple of videos of some of ISIS’s crimes to prove the claim.
But neither in the law nor the extensive background material of the Act was there any reference to whether the law applied to paying ransoms for hostages held by terrorist organizations. Since no Danish court had yet dealt with such a case and thereby settled the question, it was unclear whether it was legal or illegal. A ransom payment still ends up in the terrorists’ pockets. At the same time, it could be argued that the aim of collecting money for a ransom was not to finance terrorism, but to save a human life.
Because the family’s fundraising was operating in a legal grey area, it was carried out under the supervision of the relevant Danish authorities to ensure that neither the contributors nor the family would be prosecuted for giving money to terrorists.
Even though ISIS would receive the ransom, for Anita and the rest of the family it was purely a matter of getting Daniel home alive. Anita’s boyfriend had been a soldier and he thought that paying a ransom to ISIS was highly problematic, but they had no choice if they wanted to get Daniel released. Anita was aware of the dilemma when she asked people for a contribution and could easily understand if they didn’t want to donate.
The motto for the fundraising was ‘many small streams make a big river’. In addition to people from associations and schools in the gymnastics world who knew Daniel, the letter was sent to friends and acquaintances in the local community. The whole family helped. Daniel’s paternal grandmother wrote the account number on the bulletin board where she went to choir and told her friends about the situation, while Daniel’s maternal grandfather collected contributions from neighbours and friends in the retirement home where he lived.
Although the family had reached out to only a relatively small number of recipients, they had just sent off the letter when representatives from the Danish Security and Intelligence Service (PET) rang the doorbell in Hedegård.
Susanne welcomed the visitors, turned on the coffee machine and asked the PET agents to sit in the living room, so they could talk about the case over a cup of coffee. Anita was in the office receiving constant phone calls. The line to Hedegård was ringing off the hook at the same time as the agents from PET were expressing their concern about the fundraiser. They felt it was almost impossible to ensure that the news of Daniel’s capture wasn’t shared on social media and made public.
In a break between phone calls, Anita recognized that the fundraiser was an experiment and that she couldn’t control whether or not someone might write about Daniel on Facebook.
‘We have a choice between the plague and cholera and we have chosen cholera, because we simply can’t live with the plague,’ explained Anita.
A short time afterwards, the fundraiser was out of their control. The magazine The Gymnast sent out an email about Daniel to everyone who received the magazine’s newsletter. Anita almost had a heart attack. But donations poured in and no one said a word about Daniel on Facebook.
The family now truly believed that it might be feasible to keep Daniel’s case out of the public eye, even though they had told some people. Anit
a therefore reached out to the athletics BGI Academy and other organizations that would help to spread the word. But as the circle grew, several challenges presented themselves. It turned out that private institutions, associations and schools were not allowed to give money for a ransom, so BGI suggested making copies of Daniel’s photographs of young gymnasts from his trip to Russia, which associations and schools could then buy. In this way, Daniel’s alma mater Vesterlund School and others could contribute indirectly.
The collection was extended to principals, gymnasts, directors, management committees, bridge clubs, Rotary clubs, grandparents, friends and colleagues. During the first twenty-four hours they collected 145,000 kroner (about £15,000) and after two days the amount had reached half a million (£52,000).
Anita got a buzz when receiving updates from the lawyer about how much had been raised, although there was still a long way to go. The family was counting on taking 5 to 6 million kroner (about £521,000 to £ 625,000) to buy Daniel’s freedom.
Arthur didn’t know what to expect from the negotiations. ISIS could be an organization that wasn’t willing to negotiate. He had been involved in more than twenty cases as a security consultant around the world and he had never witnessed a hostage case as spectacular as the one that Daniel and the other hostages were involved in.
The Danish government hadn’t either. The Foreign Policy Committee discussed it behind closed doors on several occasions. Most are, but because Denmark had published the Muhammad cartoons, there was a far more immediate risk that the kidnappers would use a hostage to put pressure on the Danish government. It was therefore important for the government and parliament to keep the Daniel affair completely at arm’s length in terms of negotiations, ransom and everything else.
Kjeld also experienced the extent to which parliament – across parties and behind closed doors – had decided to distance itself from the Daniel affair. In desperation over the growing expenses, Kjeld sent an appeal to, among others, Kristian Thulesen Dahl, the leader of the Danish People’s Party and a prominent MP, who lived in the village of Thyregod, less than six miles away.
‘This is a cry for help,’ began Kjeld’s email. ‘Can it be true that we aren’t entitled to any financial support or assistance? I know only too well that the Danish government will never negotiate with kidnappers, but what about support to pay for the people that are working for us?’
The party leader replied succinctly that he couldn’t do anything to help.
So it was the family’s good fortune to have a daughter like Anita, who had professional experience in fundraising. It was not least thanks to her that, on 14 March 2014, the family could send a new offer to the kidnappers of $512,000 (£350,700), equivalent to more than 3 million kroner.
A week passed with no response from ISIS. On 22 March Susanne and Kjeld re-sent the email with the offer of $512,000 in the hope of getting a reply.
With help from large and small donations, they had now collected a total of about 5 million kroner, and there were several initiatives under way. Among other things, an Easter gala was going to be held in April, organized by several of Daniel’s old gymnastics acquaintances and the editor of The Gymnast magazine. Daniel’s former teammates and many of the country’s most talented gymnasts had agreed to come and perform. All of the profits from the event would be donated to the fund. A text message service was also set up, so that people could easily and quickly contribute 150 kroner (about £15).
At the same time, the family had finally received the letter and the video of Daniel that the Spanish hostage Marc Marginedas had brought with him out of captivity.
In the video, Susanne and Kjeld saw their son sitting shirtless against a white wall. His chest was covered in red marks and he had lost so much weight that his collar bone was sticking out. Maybe it was the way the video had been recorded, but it made him look as if he had shrunk.
Nevertheless, both the letter and the video offered a welcome reassurance that he was alive and that they just had to be persistent with the fundraising, so that he could come home as soon as possible.
The kidnappers were silent. They still hadn’t replied by 7 April, so the family decided to send a new email; this time with an increased offer. For the first time, and at Arthur’s request, they dared to name the amount in euros and offered to buy Daniel’s freedom for €845,000 (£654,100) or just over 6 million kroner.
The reason the kidnappers hadn’t replied was probably because they were busy finishing deals on some of the other hostages. Two more Spaniards, the journalist Javier Espinosa and the photographer Ricardo Vilanova, had been released from ISIS captivity towards the end of March.
· * ·
When Javier and Ricardo were about to be released and to leave the cell, the Beatles did the same thing they had done with Marc’s release. The Spaniards were made to believe that their fellow prisoners were going to be moved.
A truck backed up to the door at the end of the corridor outside the cell. The hostages were divided by nationality and Daniel climbed into the truck first, along with Dan and the Belgian, blindfolded and handcuffed. Then came the French, the Spaniards, the Americans and the British.
Although they knew that the Spaniards had been given proof-of-life questions a couple of days earlier, there was nevertheless a quivering uncertainty over what the Beatles might do next. After ten minutes, the truck stopped. Daniel could hear that a four-wheel-drive vehicle with a diesel engine was idling next to the truck and the British prisoners were asked to jump out.
‘Say goodbye to your friends!’ shouted the Beatles.
Daniel’s heart was pounding in his chest when the rear door slammed shut again and the truck continued on its way. He counted himself lucky to be at the very back of the cargo hold with Dan and the Belgian, who appeared to be valuable to the kidnappers. There was a difference between being a Danish prisoner from the little village of Hedegård and a Danish prisoner sent out by a major French organization.
When the truck stopped again, the Americans were separated from the rest and at the third stop the Spaniards disappeared.
Daniel breathed a sigh of relief when the truck drove back to the Quarry, where the British and the Americans were already waiting for him and the other hostages. The Spaniards were on their way to the border to be released.
It became harder for the hostages to discuss negotiations and ransoms, because there was still nothing happening for the British and the Americans. On the contrary, James got increasingly hard treatment.
‘Do you like being in the army, James … just like your brother?’ asked a Beatle one day.
Daniel sat facing the wall and could hear that they had put James in a stranglehold and he was struggling to breathe. Afterwards, there was a thump on the floor as James fainted and knocked his head against the concrete. When he came to, he had a big black eye. But this time they had crossed a line. Other guards, whom the hostages had never seen before, came into the cell and asked with concern about James’s head. As the hostages didn’t dare to speak ill of the Beatles, they lied and said that James had fallen over. The guards took photographs and disappeared. When the Beatles returned, they laughed at James’s black eye, but Daniel had a sense that they also came to check whether they had gone too far.
They asked James, ‘What did you say to the other guards?’
‘That I had fallen over,’ he replied.
‘Well, you did.’
Negotiations were ongoing for Pierre and the other three Frenchmen. Although it didn’t officially admit it, the French government usually did not hesitate to pay for the release of French hostages, using funds from state-owned companies, which in turn received benefits. According to a survey conducted by the New York Times, from 2008 to 2013 France topped the list of countries that had paid ransoms to groups linked to al-Qaeda. France had paid a total of $58 million (£39 million) in ransoms, while for Spain, the equivalent
amount was $5.9 million (£4 million). The United States accused these European governments of financing terrorism and of ensuring that the kidnapping industry remained a lucrative business. At the same time, America’s strict non-negotiation policy left their countrymen and their families in the worst possible situation.
While the European hostages in the Quarry waited for the negotiations to result in their releases, Pierre drew a pencil sketch of Daniel. He took his time sketching on the small piece of cardboard from a Laughing Cow cheese carton.
They had spent more than eight months together and only needed to look at each other to know what the other was thinking. Daniel could be completely himself in Pierre’s company and he loved Pierre’s ability to talk for hours about fish and other subjects that interested him, while at the same time admitting that he had never experienced being drunk.
‘It looks like me,’ said an impressed Daniel when Pierre had finished the sketch. The Frenchman nodded.
‘I’ll see if I can take it out with me.’
Pierre broke a tooth off a plastic comb and pulled a piece of thread out of a random piece of clothing. Then he unstitched a small piece of Velcro on the right sleeve of his jacket. He put the sketch under the Velcro and sewed it back on with the home-made plastic needle. He said he would put on his jacket when he left the prison and that Daniel would get the sketch when he, too, was one day released.
‘Look, Daniel,’ laughed Pierre, holding his right arm. ‘You’re right here.’
· * ·
It was early April and the three women from Médecins Sans Frontières had been freed through negotiations. Daniel and the others hadn’t seen them, but the Beatles had ordered the hostages to be quiet, as if they didn’t want the women and the men to hear each other. Even so, Daniel could hear the women in the corridor when they were being taken from their cell to the toilet.
With the previous three releases, there had been a pattern. First, the hostages were given proof-of-life questions, then there was silence until another question came, and then the final release a few days later.