The daughter of murdered British aid worker this week at the Paris trial of two of his presumed Islamic State group jailers recounted her anguish after her father went missing in war-torn Syria in 2013.
In a Paris court on Thursday, Bethany Haines, 27, read out the last text message she would ever receive from her father, David Haines, before he was abducted by IS in north Syria aged 42.
Sitting in the dock as she read were Frenchmen Mehdi Nemmouche, 39, and Abdelmalek Tanem, 35, on trial for holding four French journalists hostage for IS in Syria between 2013 and 2014.
They have also been accused of being among those who held Haines hostage, before IS beheaded him in a gruesome video released in September 2014.
“Hey there darling, hope you are okay. I’m fine and working away in Turkey. Hope you are feeling better now, love Dad,” Haines wrote to his daughter on March 12, 2013, she said.
“Over the next three weeks, my dad would receive a barrage of texts and voicemails that he would never see or hear,” she told the court.
She then read out messages she sent her father, their tone growing increasingly desperate.
“Hey Dad, hope you are enjoying Turkey. I’m busy studying for my exams.
“Hey Dad, call me when you can. Love you.
“Hey Dad, are you out in the field? My first exam went okay I think. Stay safe.
“Hey Dad, have I annoyed you? If I have, I’m sorry. Call me. Love you.
“Daddy, I need you. I’ve had an awful day. Miss you.
“Dad, I’m sorry. Phone me.
“Daddy, I need you.
“Daddy, are you there?
“Daddy, you’re scaring me.
“Where are you Daddy?”
She paused, clutching her notes.
“But he wasn’t there. He was being held, being interrogated, waterboarded, beaten, electrocuted, mocked, starved and being mentally tortured,” she said.
Governments have said hundreds of Westerners joined extremist groups including IS in Syria after civil war broke out in 2011.
Haines and the French journalists were also at several points held captive by another IS cell they dubbed the “Beatles” because of their British accents.
It was a “Beatles” member, killed in a 2015 drone strike, who beheaded Haines.
The French trial of Nemmouche and Tanem, as well as a Syrian defendant and two others in absentia because they are presumed dead, is to continue until March 21.
