Speaker 1: We'd like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land
Speaker 1: on which this podcast was produced, the Gadigall people of
Speaker 1: the orination. We pay our respects to Elder's past and present.
Speaker 2: Sister picks up the phone and basically says, I have
Speaker 2: your brother Nigel with Amandolind out. We're demanding one point
Speaker 2: five million dollars each US so three million dollar ransom demand.
Speaker 2: If you don't pay within the next twenty four hours,
Speaker 2: we'll execute them.
Speaker 3: Welcome back to Headgame.
Speaker 4: My yesterday is Nigel Brennan, who survived being kidnapped in
Speaker 4: Somalia two thousand and eight, was working as a photojournalist
Speaker 4: to hear part one of this incredible story. I'll drop
Speaker 4: the link in the show notes. Here's the second half
Speaker 4: of my conversation.
Speaker 3: With Nigel Brennan.
Speaker 4: Did they think that it was a frank? What was
Speaker 4: the reality back home when they got that phone call?
Speaker 2: So, I hadn't told any of my family what I
Speaker 2: was doing, so I'd literally told two mates I went
Speaker 2: to university that what I was about what I was
Speaker 2: planning to do. So I told mom I was going
Speaker 2: to Kenya. Somm was like no, no, Nigel's in Kenya,
Speaker 2: He's not in Somalia, and I think nat my brother
Speaker 2: grabbed an Atlas and you know, obviously I opened up
Speaker 2: Africa and was like, look, mom, Somalia.
Speaker 3: Is right next to Kenya exactly.
Speaker 2: And the fact that they'd said Amanda's name, and I
Speaker 2: obviously had relationships with Amanda a few years earlier. They
Speaker 2: were like, yeah, basically all the dots coming to other together.
Speaker 2: This is the likelihood is Nigel is in Somalia with Amanda.
Speaker 4: And when was the first time that the Australian Embassy
Speaker 4: was informed? Was it shortly after did your family call
Speaker 4: the Australian Embassy?
Speaker 2: My family called I believe Department of Foreign Affairs and
Speaker 2: Trade directly after that uncle and said, We've just received
Speaker 2: a phone call saying that Nigel's been kidnapped. And I
Speaker 2: believe Defat's response was, we cannot either confirm or deny
Speaker 2: whether Nigel has been kidnapped or not.
Speaker 3: Wow, So yeah they knew.
Speaker 2: Which again was I think the cat mouse with the
Speaker 2: family and the Australian government that went on for the
Speaker 2: next twelve months, which from my point of view, coming
Speaker 2: home and saying what my family had to deal with
Speaker 2: in terms of dealing with the Australian government. Was really frustrating?
Speaker 3: Was it? So? Straight away Amanda gets sexually assaulted? What
Speaker 3: happens to you? Does anything like that happen to you?
Speaker 2: Not?
Speaker 3: Any beatings any.
Speaker 2: No beatings basically mock executions.
Speaker 3: Nope.
Speaker 2: During the abduction, we won't blindfolded or anything like that.
Speaker 2: Just the fear, I think is someone coming in with
Speaker 2: an AK forty seven and sort of sitting it on
Speaker 2: the lap pointing at you and morning information. Obviously five
Speaker 2: months into Ara or do we escape?
Speaker 3: Tell me about that? Wow? Wow?
Speaker 4: So I talk about conjuring up a plan. Maybe due
Speaker 4: to my training, I started straight away.
Speaker 3: So after a.
Speaker 4: Few months, you obviously get to know the guards, you
Speaker 4: get to know the location, You get to know a
Speaker 4: bit of a routine.
Speaker 3: Yep, how does that pan out?
Speaker 4: And when do you decide right, it's time to get
Speaker 4: out of here?
Speaker 2: The escape came around really after our three colleagues had
Speaker 2: been taken out of the house and never returned. So
Speaker 2: let me go back a little bit. Amanda and I
Speaker 2: convert to Islam after ten days as a survival technique.
Speaker 2: I guess we were kept together for the first two months,
Speaker 2: and then we're actually separated after two months. Their reasoning is,
Speaker 2: as a Muslim man and a woman that are unmarried,
Speaker 2: we shouldn't be sharing the same room. It's a way
Speaker 2: for them to conquer and divide. I think apply them
Speaker 2: more pressure. Some of my concern for a man to
Speaker 2: sort of INTENSIFIESE at that stage because I'm not in
Speaker 2: a room and I can't protect her. During the next
Speaker 2: three months of our separation, she's taken out twice and
Speaker 2: they basically do mock execution before they put her on
Speaker 2: the phone.
Speaker 3: So she's getting the brun of everything.
Speaker 4: Basically, yes, and it's always pick one. It's a technique
Speaker 4: that they use. They always pick one to try and
Speaker 4: break the other down.
Speaker 2: Well, I think the reason I'm guessing at this, but
Speaker 2: when we were first taken in the kidnap for ransom
Speaker 2: world extortion response, Well, we talk about I guess putting
Speaker 2: a safety net under hostages, like offer a small amount
Speaker 2: of money to keep hostages safe. So my dad had
Speaker 2: basically put twenty five thousand dollars straight on the table.
Speaker 2: So when the head guys used to come in and
Speaker 2: talk to me, they would say, your situation is good,
Speaker 2: stray and government is working with this Canadian government's causing problems.
Speaker 2: So I think the kidnappers had sort of used that
Speaker 2: as a way to really apply pressure to Amanda and
Speaker 2: her family.
Speaker 4: And also show you know, if you play ball, this
Speaker 4: how you get treated. If you don't, then this is
Speaker 4: how you get treated. Absolutely is a massive head game,
Speaker 4: massive head head fun, should we say, it's messes with
Speaker 4: your mind and you know, almost to the point where
Speaker 4: you know you want to be on your side, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're separated. I think Amanda and I were allowed
Speaker 2: to sit together on two occasions. I think the first
Speaker 2: time was for about four hours. The next time was
Speaker 2: for two hours. And as a I guess as a
Speaker 2: hostage or a prisoner, you work out very quickly ways
Speaker 2: of communicating when you're separated, and you know, started through
Speaker 2: knock codes, and we were leaving little messages for each
Speaker 2: other in the toilet in the back bathroom that we
Speaker 2: shared in this house. But you do get into a rhythm.
Speaker 2: We were sort of moved every four to six weeks
Speaker 2: to a different house, and we were somewhere in the
Speaker 2: north of mogad Issue, so there was always a routine
Speaker 2: on how we are moved stage at Abdy and the two
Speaker 2: drivers are still in the house. They're being sort of
Speaker 2: kept in another room in complete darkness. I can see
Speaker 2: them from our room occasionally and sort of wave, and
Speaker 2: he's Abdy sort of saying, where's the money? Oh?
Speaker 3: Really, well yah, thinking about himself. Pay now so we
Speaker 3: can get the hell out of it.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So I'd always like, we talked about escape, and I'd
Speaker 2: been looking at the house that we're in and it's like,
Speaker 2: is there a way of getting out? And you know,
Speaker 2: you've got a two foot high wall with razor wire
Speaker 2: on it, that's not a possibility. I'd looked. I'd been
Speaker 2: able to sort of sneak out of my room. We
Speaker 2: were never locked in our rooms. The doors were always
Speaker 2: shut and you just had guards that would sort of
Speaker 2: roam occasionally, so you never sort of really knew when
Speaker 2: they were going to come past. So I looked in
Speaker 2: the kitchen, could see up into a manhole and could
Speaker 2: see that the tin roof and was like, maybe we
Speaker 2: can punch our way through there and do a bolt.
Speaker 2: And it's like, well, no, that's going to be too noisy.
Speaker 2: But Amanda and I had discussed, I guess, particularly after
Speaker 2: her I guess, fake assassination, some sort of things that
Speaker 2: they've done on her, the possibility of escaping, and for
Speaker 2: me it was like, well, again, didn't feel ethically right
Speaker 2: for the two of us to get out, and the
Speaker 2: three Somarians would end up as collateral damage potentially, So
Speaker 2: once they were taken out of the building one night,
Speaker 2: next morning, Jamal, one of our young captors, came in
Speaker 2: and I said, where's Abdi, where are the two drivers,
Speaker 2: And he'd explained that they had been released back to
Speaker 2: their families. And every morning our windows were open, and
Speaker 2: Amanda and I used to knock up the wall to
Speaker 2: come to the window so that we could communicate with
Speaker 2: each other secretly in quiet voices, and both of us
Speaker 2: were really excited, sort of saying, oh, this is great,
Speaker 2: like finally something's starting to happen. If they've released them,
Speaker 2: this is a good sign. And again, yet your head
Speaker 2: starts to play tricks on you, and it's like, well,
Speaker 2: hang on. If they were released and their locals, they
Speaker 2: would know where we're being held, and the group would
Speaker 2: probably want to move us fairly quickly so that we're
Speaker 2: in another location. And captors didn't seem in any sort
Speaker 2: of rush to nervous, so then it's like, you know,
Speaker 2: you start overthinking things. And then another young captor came
Speaker 2: in who terrified me. This young guy absolutely scared the
Speaker 2: shit out of me. And I said to him, I said, oh,
Speaker 2: it's great news that Abdy's and the other guys have
Speaker 2: been released to their family. And he laughed in my
Speaker 2: face and he said, who told you that? And I said,
Speaker 2: Jamal And he said, well, Jamal alighted. He said they
Speaker 2: were handed over to al Shabob last night and this
Speaker 2: morning all three of them were beheaded for working with
Speaker 2: for working with Westerners. And again it's that.
Speaker 3: Mine game mind.
Speaker 2: Game, like it's like and by that stage, like the windows,
Speaker 2: our windows had been closed, so I couldn't communicate with
Speaker 2: a Manda. But you know, for the next fourteen hours,
Speaker 2: it's just like that's probably the Yeah, those guys are
Speaker 2: no longer here. Let's basically just so.
Speaker 4: You forged your plan to escape it.
Speaker 2: Actually it went really well to start off with. So
Speaker 2: where Amanda was bang held in her room, she looked
Speaker 2: straight down the hallway to where our guards were situated
Speaker 2: on the front ferranda, and her eyesight was obviously quite poor,
Speaker 2: but with a little pin hole in the middle door
Speaker 2: she could see down to the front. So whenever we
Speaker 2: wanted to go to the toilet, we had to bang
Speaker 2: on our door and wait for a guard to come
Speaker 2: and basically, so, yeah, you can go. So by this
Speaker 2: stage I'd learn a little bit of Arabic. I'd learned
Speaker 2: some Somali just you know, please, thank you. Can I
Speaker 2: go to the toilet? Can I speak to this person?
Speaker 2: Can you please help me? I had learned a couple
Speaker 2: of sewers of the Koran, how to say the profession
Speaker 2: of faith, those sorts of things. So I'd been looking
Speaker 2: at our bathroom and it was about six foot off
Speaker 2: the ground. Obviously best of brick sort of blocks, but
Speaker 2: the lattice style ones that you could look through that
Speaker 2: they use in Africa. Had looked at that and could
Speaker 2: just see it was dabbed with mortar on the corners.
Speaker 2: The problem was there was these five metal bars running
Speaker 2: across in front of them. So I thought, I'll jump
Speaker 2: up on one of those bars and pull myself up
Speaker 2: onto the window. And as I jumped up, the whole
Speaker 2: thing sort of slid. So I was like, oh, it's
Speaker 2: not cool, field like that move. So I basically sort
Speaker 2: of quietly pushed and pulled it until I could see
Speaker 2: the end of the metal, and then bent the piece
Speaker 2: of metal and could get it out, And I said
Speaker 2: to Amanda, went back and knocked on the door and
Speaker 2: we went to the window. I said, right, I got away.
Speaker 2: I need you to be my eyes and ears. So
Speaker 2: I'm basically going to sneak out of the room. If
Speaker 2: you see someone coming, you bang on the door so
Speaker 2: that we want to go to the toilets. I had
Speaker 2: a little pair of ail clippers with one of the
Speaker 2: little files that came out at the end, and over
Speaker 2: the next two and a half days basically chiseled out
Speaker 2: this mortar, took out two of the bars, went back
Speaker 2: after two and a half days and said to Amanda, right,
Speaker 2: we're good to go. What's the plant?
Speaker 3: Wow? For sure? You grab her?
Speaker 2: And well, pretty much once I was separated from Amanda,
Speaker 2: I was allowed to go outside once a week for
Speaker 2: an hour and do washing, and could obviously see planes
Speaker 2: before they sort of disappeared behind the wall. And thought
Speaker 2: that must have been Mogadishu Airport, because we knew we
Speaker 2: were fairly close to Mogadishu. So I said to Amanda right,
Speaker 2: let's go after we both agreed that we would go
Speaker 2: after final prayer, we'd get out basically very quietly, and
Speaker 2: then just run in that direction. The problem with that
Speaker 2: is Mogadishu streets aren't like normal Western streets that are
Speaker 2: nice and long that it's like a rabbit warren. So
Speaker 2: I said to Amanda, basically, after final prayer, you knock
Speaker 2: on the door, I'll follow you out truck and trailer
Speaker 2: into the bathroom. I'll take out the bars, take out
Speaker 2: the blocks, and bang week and slip out. So first attempt,
Speaker 2: get the blocks out, get the bars out, push Amanda
Speaker 2: up onto the ledge of the window, and she's contorting herself,
Speaker 2: and she turns around. She says, I can't fit, and
Speaker 2: I'm just like, fuck yeah, fuck you got to you
Speaker 2: gotta get out, like this is our chance. And realize
Speaker 2: that she can't fit, like I need to out another
Speaker 2: bar and it's too noisy, So send Amanda back to
Speaker 2: her room. And then so I'm sitting in this bathroom
Speaker 2: looking at this gaping hole in the wall and knowing that,
Speaker 2: you know, one of the guards could walk into the
Speaker 2: bathroom at any stage. Then over the next four hours,
Speaker 2: I basically feign that I have diarrhea and that I
Speaker 2: need to go to the bathroom again and again as
Speaker 2: I rebuild the best of book We're all and put
Speaker 2: the rods in. Finally do it, fall asleep, have the
Speaker 2: best night's sleep of my entire captivity, and wake up
Speaker 2: in the morning, go and basically remove them another bar
Speaker 2: without ovn Amanda knowing, and then said, right, got a
Speaker 2: new plan because she had explained that whilst they were
Speaker 2: taking her out on one of those fake assassinations. She said,
Speaker 2: basically the streets were lined with mass you know, with
Speaker 2: guys with AK forty seven's And I was like, we're
Speaker 2: going to literally get out of the house and run
Speaker 2: straight into potentially al Shabob or something like that. And
Speaker 2: I said, look, we're Muslim. There's a mosque right on
Speaker 2: top of us. Because the call to prayer was so loud,
Speaker 2: I said, if I was in a West country and
Speaker 2: I couldn't go to the police, I'd go to a
Speaker 2: church because hopefully you'd find people there that would help you.
Speaker 2: So I said, today's Thursday, tomorrow's Friday, busiest day of
Speaker 2: the Muslim week. Let's go on Friday. And she said,
Speaker 2: love the idea but what happens if they're nervous Tonight?
Speaker 3: I was just like, fuck you, yeah, that seed of doubt? Yeah,
Speaker 3: why did you put it there?
Speaker 2: So I said, right, let's go midday today. We'll go
Speaker 2: same thing. Basically, follow her out into the bathroom, throw
Speaker 2: all the blocks out, throw the three bars out, watch
Speaker 2: her disappear. I jump out, throw our bags out, throw
Speaker 2: my shoes out, get onto the ground, pulling on my shoes,
Speaker 2: and like, I'm thinking we're going to have a minute
Speaker 2: or two head start, and this kid next door basically
Speaker 2: starts screaming in Somali, and I literally pull on my shoes,
Speaker 2: put on my my camera bag, and run and again,
Speaker 2: like my brain just goes to complete mush. And so
Speaker 2: we're sort of in between two houses, our house in
Speaker 2: the next door neighbor's house, which I could have touched
Speaker 2: putting a hand through the window. Run down between the
Speaker 2: two houses. No turning left will take us back to
Speaker 2: the front gates of our compound, so the only option
Speaker 2: is to turn right. And I just literally it's like
Speaker 2: I'm running on air. I just sprint. I have no
Speaker 2: idea where Amanda is. Come past our next door neighbors compound.
Speaker 2: I look over my shoulder and I can see this
Speaker 2: guy standing at his front compound gate and he says
Speaker 2: in English, what are you doing? And I just keep running.
Speaker 2: You know, it computes, but I don't respond. I get
Speaker 2: to a teener section, I can see the mosque minarets.
Speaker 2: I look to my left, I can see like a
Speaker 2: main road with lots of markets, and I just think
Speaker 2: safety in numbers, So I turn left and I start running,
Speaker 2: so not going to the mosque, which.
Speaker 3: Is completely just making up asub oh yeah.
Speaker 2: And then I hear Amanda saying what are you doing?
Speaker 2: And I basically do a one eighty run pass back her.
Speaker 2: Get to that teen A section again and the next
Speaker 2: on aber is standing there and he says do you
Speaker 2: need help? And I'm like, just grab him under the
Speaker 2: arm and I said, we've been kidnapped. By this stage,
Speaker 2: Amanda catch us up and we're like, can you please
Speaker 2: help us? Can you take us to the mask? Whereas
Speaker 2: it is like it's it's literally right there, So we
Speaker 2: basically sprint to the mask, run up the side stairs,
Speaker 2: and just as we're about to enter, there's a warning
Speaker 2: shot from an AK forty seven behind us that goes
Speaker 2: over our heads run into the mosque and there's obviously
Speaker 2: men everywhere, and I start saying in Somali like I win,
Speaker 2: I win, I win, please help, please help, please help
Speaker 2: one a Muslim one day Muslim, I'm Muslim, we are Muslim,
Speaker 2: and then say the profession of faith bism LAHI I'll
Speaker 2: rock money him. And then two other guys, older gentlemen,
Speaker 2: Somali gentlemen, come over and they're speaking English to us.
Speaker 2: And then the next thing, I just get king hit
Speaker 2: from behind like a coward punch so Jamal and Abdullah
Speaker 2: who was the younger angry guard or obviously seconds behind us.
Speaker 2: So Jamals punched me in the back of the head.
Speaker 2: He's now got me by the arm and he's trying
Speaker 2: to pull me back out the door. And I ripped
Speaker 2: the sleeve off my shirt. Amanda has a hijab ripped off,
Speaker 2: and he's got Amanda by the back of the hair
Speaker 2: and he's trying to pull her out. And then these
Speaker 2: three older Somali men just grabbed these two young kids
Speaker 2: who've got AK forty seven's on them, and just grabbed
Speaker 2: them by the throat and push them up against the
Speaker 2: wall and they're screaming at them. And then this crowd
Speaker 2: sort of envelops us and somebody else is speaking English.
Speaker 2: You know, who are you? What's happened? You know, I'm
Speaker 2: Nigel Brennan Strain photojournalists. We've been kidnapped for the last
Speaker 2: five months. You're Muslim. One a Muslim, We are Muslim.
Speaker 2: Do you want to pray? It's like, yeah, I want
Speaker 2: to pray. I've never prayed in a mosque. So they
Speaker 2: sort of push us into the middle of the mask
Speaker 2: and then they put us into the pulpit and were
Speaker 2: sitting there and it's I sort of say, it's like
Speaker 2: the Bush Telegraph goes out that there's obviously two Westerners
Speaker 2: now in the north of Mogadishue, and more people are
Speaker 2: sort of flooding in to get a look at us. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm pulling out my Koran. And we received a care
Speaker 2: package was while we were still together. But one of
Speaker 2: the books was A Thousand Splendid Sons and in that
Speaker 2: book they talk about how Muslims kiss the book and
Speaker 2: put it to their head. And I'm like, oh, this
Speaker 2: is obviously what you do is Muslim. So I've got
Speaker 2: my crown. I'm doing that and the Somalis are looking
Speaker 2: at me, like what is this weird doing? So I'm
Speaker 2: pulling out all my religious books. I got the dry straight,
Speaker 2: you know. I think from fear and stress and shock.
Speaker 2: And I can remember looking over my left shoulder in
Speaker 2: the pulpit and there's a window there and I can
Speaker 2: see big black figure and I'm like, can we play
Speaker 2: shut those windows? Because I thought someone was just going
Speaker 2: to stick a gun through and shoot us. And it
Speaker 2: was actually a woman, So they close the windows. That
Speaker 2: woman actually pushes her way into the mosque and comes
Speaker 2: and sits between Amanda and myself. So there's like mayhem
Speaker 2: going on. It's hard to describe, sort of just trying
Speaker 2: to talk to people understand what's going on, saying I
Speaker 2: guess the fear that's in the building as well. At
Speaker 2: one point where everyone starts to run away from us,
Speaker 2: and as they spread out, I can see guys just
Speaker 2: racing in with AK forty seven's and mass faces, and
Speaker 2: it's just.
Speaker 4: Like, you know what, if I didn't know that you
Speaker 4: were captive for fifteen months, then I'd hold a bit
Speaker 4: of hope for you.
Speaker 3: But obviously you're handed back over right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we were recaptured. I think my fear at that moment. Look,
Speaker 2: part of the escape for me was like I'm going
Speaker 2: to take back control. If I'm going to die in Somalia,
Speaker 2: I'm actually going to make someone work for it. I'm
Speaker 2: just going to take a buller in the back of
Speaker 2: the head, like you're going to have to kill me.
Speaker 2: But I think the reality of watching these guys now
Speaker 2: flood and it was just like this is going to
Speaker 2: end in an absolute blood bath, Like so many people
Speaker 2: are going to die here today, not just us, but
Speaker 2: locals as well. So a man is trying to communicate
Speaker 2: with this woman basically points it herself, then uses the
Speaker 2: international sign for fornication and points at one of the
Speaker 2: young guards, and this woman starts screaming. And then the
Speaker 2: next minute I see our head guys come through the
Speaker 2: side door with pistols and guns and stuff.
Speaker 3: They sort of.
Speaker 2: Walk around the crowd, come back behind us, you know,
Speaker 2: getting smashed by the butt of a pistol. So I
Speaker 2: sort of go into fetal position. Amanda gets grabbed by
Speaker 2: the hair and she's sort of dragged past me over
Speaker 2: to the other side of the mosque where there's a
Speaker 2: set of doors. Like I'm trying to watch what's going
Speaker 2: on with her, trying to protect myself, and then maybe
Speaker 2: ten to fifteen seconds later, I just tear a single
Speaker 2: gunshot and I'm like, fuck, they've just executed her. Like
Speaker 2: that's all that I can think, and the reality of
Speaker 2: my life is pretty much I've got minutes to live.
Speaker 3: I reckon.
Speaker 2: So the guys that have taken Amanda come back again.
Speaker 2: I'm kicked and punched, and then i feel someone grabbed
Speaker 2: me by the ankles and I'm then dragged basically to
Speaker 2: the front doors of the mosque, drag down some concrete steps,
Speaker 2: and it was so weird. I sort of explained this
Speaker 2: as a moment of clarity where I was really clear
Speaker 2: I wasn't scared of dying, but it was just like,
Speaker 2: I really wish I could just call mom and Dad
Speaker 2: and tell them how much I love them and how
Speaker 2: sorry I am for the anxiety and the pain that
Speaker 2: I've caused for the last five months.
Speaker 3: Wow, he's expecting everything to end that Yeah.
Speaker 2: Then yeah, gets sort of picked up by six or
Speaker 2: eight guys above heads and I can see the gates
Speaker 2: of the courtyard of the moskue and I realized once
Speaker 2: I'm off hellow turf, like they're going to execute me
Speaker 2: get through those gates, sort of look over to my left,
Speaker 2: can see the two vehicles that we're always transported in.
Speaker 2: Can see Amanda in the back seat, still fighting, trying
Speaker 2: to trying to get away. She's alive yet, so it's
Speaker 2: just like, oh my God, like sweet relief. I'm bundled
Speaker 2: in beside Amanda, Abdullah and Jamal, the two young guards,
Speaker 2: jumping beside each of us. I can see that Amanda's
Speaker 2: taken a punch to the face because her eyes starting
Speaker 2: to sort of swell up, and she looks at me.
Speaker 2: She's got this stupid grin on her face and she goes, fuck,
Speaker 2: that was intense.
Speaker 5: Still breaks the silence, right, yeah, And then looking at Dulla,
Speaker 5: the young guy who pulls his pistol out and puts
Speaker 5: it in his mouth, and basically, you know, fakes pulling
Speaker 5: the trigger, and it's just like right, they're probably just.
Speaker 2: Going to drive us out unto the bush now and
Speaker 2: execute us away from eyes and ears, and we're taken
Speaker 2: to another house interrogated for I think, you know, it
Speaker 2: seemed like about three hours. And then at the end
Speaker 2: of that interrogation, a young one of the young guards
Speaker 2: walked in with a bag of chains and padlocks, and
Speaker 2: then they basically padlocked our legs together.
Speaker 3: Things changed drastically.
Speaker 4: From the moment you try to escape, you're treated differently,
Speaker 4: no more mister nice guy. And then for the next
Speaker 4: ten months onwards, you're living in hell basically.
Speaker 2: So for the next eleven months, those chains were taken
Speaker 2: off for a total of two hours.
Speaker 3: Wow, so you're completely chained up.
Speaker 2: You're chained up, not allowed to exercise, basically, forced to
Speaker 2: lie or sit twenty four hours a day. The only
Speaker 2: time I can get up is to wash for prayer.
Speaker 2: If I want to go to the bathroom, I've got
Speaker 2: to knock a cup on the floor. And it's you know,
Speaker 2: they they don't even use my Muslim name at that stage,
Speaker 2: so just that means that means I can go to
Speaker 2: the toilet. So it's it's luck you become this animal
Speaker 2: in some noah, noah.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: At the start, they called me Muhammad, and they used
Speaker 2: to be like Muhammed, Mohammed, Muhama. And I'm like, oh,
Speaker 2: you're talking to me, yeah, yeah, because you're so used
Speaker 2: to your know, yeah, And I said, can I at
Speaker 2: least have something that starts with and then so yeah,
Speaker 2: that for the next eleven months, it was it became
Speaker 2: I guess me trying to change my mindset of I
Speaker 2: think having had Amanda for those first two months, it
Speaker 2: was and it was amazing to go through that experience
Speaker 2: with someone. And in the first weeks I was really
Speaker 2: negative and she was like, if you if you think
Speaker 2: we're going to die here, we will die here if
Speaker 2: that's the energy you're putting out. So for me it
Speaker 2: was about, Okay, how do I take control of this situation? Like, yes,
Speaker 2: I can't determine when I go to the toilet or
Speaker 2: when I eat, or go outside and see the sun
Speaker 2: and the sky and those sorts of things. But it's
Speaker 2: like they can beat the shit out of me, they
Speaker 2: can threaten me. The only thing that they can't actually
Speaker 2: touch is my mind.
Speaker 4: And that's take away from me as a way, I think, yeah,
Speaker 4: your mind? Yeah, so liberating? Is that? Oh?
Speaker 3: It was?
Speaker 2: And that was such a powerful thing to be able
Speaker 2: to change your mindset and look when you're stuck in
Speaker 2: four walls for fourteen hours a day, and that's the
Speaker 2: way I looked at it. I broke my date and
Speaker 2: myself it was like, it doesn't matter what happened yesterday,
Speaker 2: It doesn't what happens tomorrow. All I can basically control
Speaker 2: is what I do in the next four day hour
Speaker 2: is because you would wake up at six o'clock in
Speaker 2: the morning for prayer and then final prayer was it
Speaker 2: at seven o'clock or eight o'clock at night. It's like
Speaker 2: I've just got to fill the next four nine hours
Speaker 2: sort of stuff.
Speaker 3: What are you sleeping on.
Speaker 2: A tiny little like mattress and a mosquito net and
Speaker 2: basically a pillowcos filled with clothes.
Speaker 4: Wow, So after sixteen months fifteen months.
Speaker 3: You get released? Yep? How does it come about?
Speaker 4: Is it one of those where it's just a case
Speaker 4: of you get a knock on the door and it's
Speaker 4: like you're going home?
Speaker 3: Or did they preempt you.
Speaker 2: We'd had a discussion maybe three four weeks earlier with Upmed,
Speaker 2: one of the head guys, and he'd come in and said,
Speaker 2: if everything goes to plan tonight, you'll be released. That
Speaker 2: didn't happen. The next time I saw him and said,
Speaker 2: your family has basically broken its promise. We're now going
Speaker 2: to sell you on, so you're to al Shabab. So
Speaker 2: they've offered to me in us. They have a bigger organization.
Speaker 2: They can move you around the country, they can hold
Speaker 2: you for as long as they want. Which was terrifying
Speaker 2: to think that I'd created this relationship with thirteen people
Speaker 2: to then go to a new organization of people I
Speaker 2: didn't know. It was like basically starting from scratch again.
Speaker 2: And then one day we so we'd then moved to Keshmeo,
Speaker 2: and then we'd been moved back to mogad Issue and
Speaker 2: they came in and basically said stand up, don't ask questions.
Speaker 2: They tried to unlock the padlocks, and because they've been
Speaker 2: on for so long and they'd rusted, so they had
Speaker 2: to go and find a haxle to cut them off.
Speaker 2: And I kept saying to Abdullah the young guys, like
Speaker 2: what's going on, and he just said, don't ask questions.
Speaker 2: Was told to strip, put on new clothes, and then
Speaker 2: was frog marched out of the room put into a car,
Speaker 2: and I could see Amanda in the courtyard. They were
Speaker 2: doing the same thing to her, cutting off her chains,
Speaker 2: and she was put into the car beside me, and
Speaker 2: it's just like, what's going on. Neither of us knew.
Speaker 2: We're taken out of that compound, driven to a petrol
Speaker 2: station where they refilled the car, and Ahmed was there,
Speaker 2: and I'd made this loose agreement, and I think he'd
Speaker 2: done this with Amanda as well, Like there was if
Speaker 2: they released us, we had to basically agree to five things.
Speaker 2: One would be that we would pay them more money
Speaker 2: once we got back to our countries, wouldn't talk about
Speaker 2: our experience, we would never leave the religion of Islam.
Speaker 2: There was and he just said, look, do you still
Speaker 2: agree on those five things. It's like, yeah, here's a
Speaker 2: document sign it.
Speaker 3: It's like, there you go.
Speaker 2: We then sort of drive into the night, pick up
Speaker 2: another car in a convoy, and we end up pulling
Speaker 2: up in the darkness, basically in the middle of nowhere.
Speaker 2: There's a station wagon car there. We're taken out of
Speaker 2: our vehicle, thrown into that too. Obviously, Somalian guys in
Speaker 2: the front seat ask who we are, our names, sort
Speaker 2: of identify ourselves. Phone calls made, and just before we
Speaker 2: drive off, because I didn't had taken mik around at
Speaker 2: this stage, and I said, no, no, that's my Holy book.
Speaker 2: I need it because I thought we're about to be
Speaker 2: handed over to al Shabab. Abdullah basically opened the door,
Speaker 2: through it on my lap, close the door, and then
Speaker 2: we drove off. So we're now in a car with
Speaker 2: two complete strangers, drive along a dirt road, turn left
Speaker 2: onto a bitchamin road. We're absolutely flying along, and then
Speaker 2: two Toyota tray backs sort of come out of nowhere
Speaker 2: with fifty kel guns on the back of them, and
Speaker 2: then we're surrounded by about fifty guys in Savilian clothing
Speaker 2: with AK forty seven's and I'm like, this can't be
Speaker 2: happening again. Another Toyota pulls up. We're dragged out of
Speaker 2: our car put into that, and both Amanda and I
Speaker 2: are pretty hysterical by this stage because we don't know
Speaker 2: what's going on. And the guy's like, why are you
Speaker 2: so upset? And it's like, well, I don't know if
Speaker 2: I said it or I thought, it's just like, well,
Speaker 2: I don't see any white people. Yeah, and he's like, no, no,
Speaker 2: you've been You've been released, and it's like, still don't
Speaker 2: believe this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I didn't compute, and.
Speaker 2: It wasn't until he pulled out a phone and obviously
Speaker 2: dialed some numbers and gave the phone to Amanda, and
Speaker 2: then she spoke to her mum and said, you guys
Speaker 2: have been released. We've finally negotiated a price.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 3: Avansom was paid yep.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so about six hundred and seventy five thousand US dollars.
Speaker 3: Wow when that all came from your parents' pocket? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Better than three million dollars, isn't it.
Speaker 2: Look the other thing that when my family left the
Speaker 2: Australian government, they employed a private K and R company
Speaker 2: for three months and their cost was about the same
Speaker 2: as the ransom, so it was it was close to
Speaker 2: a one point three million dollar experience.
Speaker 3: And did you adhere to the five rules? Any of them? None?
Speaker 4: None make you out of contract.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well it's funny because I've met an email with me
Speaker 2: shortly after I got home and he's like, we have
Speaker 2: an appointment to speak. So I just got that straight
Speaker 2: to the Australian Federal Police to see if they could
Speaker 2: track him down.
Speaker 4: Look.
Speaker 2: Out of the whole thing, there was only one guy
Speaker 2: that was ever arrested, which was Adama guy that was
Speaker 2: obviously the communication expert for the kidnap group. He was
Speaker 2: arrested in Canada.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 4: And a quick question before we finish, do you think
Speaker 4: it was an inside jobby.
Speaker 3: Do you think you were stitched up?
Speaker 2: I think everything is sort of it's in that direction
Speaker 2: because our kidnappers said they knew that there were four
Speaker 2: journalists working in two teams. They knew exactly how many
Speaker 2: drivers we had, they knew exactly how many security detail
Speaker 2: But one thing that Upmed did say to us very
Speaker 2: early on, I think in the first couple of months.
Speaker 2: He said, we were actually expecting two men, one of
Speaker 2: them was French and one of them was Belgium. But
Speaker 2: we knew the Belgian guy was actually an American citizen,
Speaker 2: which was the National Geographic Team.
Speaker 3: Wow, so you weren't even.
Speaker 2: We weren't even. So they said they were incredibly surprised
Speaker 2: to say a female in the car. And what we
Speaker 2: didn't realize was when the morning we left, the NATGO
Speaker 2: team had actually made a detour to stop somewhere so
Speaker 2: we'd become the lead car.
Speaker 4: Shit.
Speaker 3: Luck.
Speaker 4: Wow, one point three million dollars later, and how are
Speaker 4: your parents right now? They're really good.
Speaker 2: Look, it absolutely took its toll on my family. Yeah, financially,
Speaker 2: you know, when you when you're dealing with I guess
Speaker 2: a loved one and I think in the kidnap game
Speaker 2: as well. You know, a family will do whatever they
Speaker 2: can to get of course a member of their family back.
Speaker 2: And I think their struggle was obviously dealing with with
Speaker 2: the Australian government. But yeah, look, I think they were
Speaker 2: incredibly happy to get me home. I know my brother
Speaker 2: Han got me a big hung He said, I love you,
Speaker 2: but you're a fucking idiot. And he said, I'm giving
Speaker 2: you a couple of weeks to get fit.
Speaker 3: And I could have told you that. I could have
Speaker 3: told you that.
Speaker 4: Mate.
Speaker 3: It's been great chatting with you. So what are you
Speaker 3: doing now? Mate?
Speaker 2: So look, over the last decades I have been I've
Speaker 2: worked for three of the sort of major international kidnapp
Speaker 2: for rants and extortion companies. Spent up until about a
Speaker 2: year ago, was also moonlighting and working at the University
Speaker 2: of Tasmania. But at the moment have just gone back
Speaker 2: to study.
Speaker 4: And do you do you have any more dangers journeys
Speaker 4: or dangerous exploits on the cards or you completely put
Speaker 4: off now?
Speaker 2: No, not at all. I love traveling like I love
Speaker 2: going seeing other cultures and other countries and those sorts
Speaker 2: of things. And you know, I did a little bit
Speaker 2: of work in Africa and everyone's like, are you stupid? Well,
Speaker 2: it's not all dangerous, yeah, exactly, and there's some like,
Speaker 2: there's some amazing countries in.
Speaker 4: The world too, and by the sounds of it, made
Speaker 4: wrong place long time. Yeah, but hopefully your family won't
Speaker 4: go through any of that again, and you'll be you'll
Speaker 4: you'll be a good boy and you won't make any
Speaker 4: rash decisions. But listen, next time you go anywhere like that, mate,
Speaker 4: give me a shout.
Speaker 3: Thanks.
Speaker 4: Nigel Brennan is a photojournalist and his book is called
Speaker 4: The Price of Life.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for joining me on Headgame.
Speaker 4: If you enjoyed this episode, make sure you're subscribed so
Speaker 4: you don't miss any of our incredible stories and leave.
Speaker 3: Me a review wherever you're listening. I'm Att Middleton. At
Speaker 3: you again. Next time.
Speaker 2: M