Haines: I’ll dig up my dad and bring him home
Bethany Haines: I’ve found death site
BRAVE Bethany Haines is to travel to Syria in a bid to find and dig up the remains of her Scots aid worker dad David, who was murdered in 2014 by an Isis fanatic known as Jihadi John.
THE daughter of murdered Scots aid worker David Haines is to return to Syria to dig for her father’s remains after pinpointing what she believes to be the scene of his death.
Bethany Haines has located the spot where she thinks humanitarian aid worker David, from Perth, was killed by Isis fanatic “Jihadi John” in 2014.
She found it by studying the horrifying beheading video released by his captors.
The mum of one says she has been let down by the authorities and forced to conduct her own painstaking research alongside her university studies.
She believes she was previously given inaccurate information on where her dad’s body – and those of other murdered hostages – may lie.
Bethany’s made a heart-wrenching trip to Syria earlier this year but it ended in disappointment when the area around the suspected execution site was deemed too unsafe to visit. Now, the 23-year-old is making plans to return with a team who can help her excavate the spot.
Bethany said: “I have the precise coordinates of where we think it is.
“On the video, it doesn’t seem like there is a lot in the area as it is pretty desolate. But in the background, you can see certain features, like a tree, which we have managed to track down on Google Earth. We do have a precise location.
“If I’m wrong, then I’m wrong – but at least I will know I’ve tried.”
David, 44, was helping refugees in a camp near the Turkish border when he was captured in March 2013. He was held for 18 months before being beheaded by Mohammed Emwazi – aka Jihadi John – in September 2014. Sickening images
of the killing – along with those of Alan Henning, another British aid worker, US journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff and US aid worker Peter Kassig – were turned into Isis propaganda.
Bethany has been putting pressure on the Government to find the bodies and bring them home to their families.
But she feels she now has to take matters into her own hands. She said: “The information I’ve had over the years, including from the Foreign Office, has turned out to be inaccurate. It’s difficult getting a straight answer from them.
“I thought, ‘If you’re not going to tell me the truth, I’ll do it myself’. I didn’t think I was going to find out that much when I started researching but I did.
“I’ve spoken to one of the people captured alongside my dad and various other sources and their account of where it took place is completely different. I went back to the Foreign Office and confronted them with all the information.
“The Foreign Office hasn’t taken a lot of responsibility. When it came to my dad’s anniversary, it was too long and I decided I was going over myself.”
Bethany travelled to Syria with an ITN news crew, who aired footage in October of her visiting key sites in David’s last months and the spot where his executioner is thought to have been killed in a drone strike in 2016.
But she left frustrated that she could not search more closely for her dad.
She said: “ITN didn’t want to go to the execution site because they weren’t 100 per cent sure if it had been de-mined and they didn’t want to take the risk.
“I respected that decision. I had gone out there to try and confirm I was right about where his body might be and the
YPG (the People’s Protection Unit in Syria, which consists of mainly Kurdish volunteers) agreed with me that it would be in that area. Everything seems to point to the area I have found. My biggest regret was not going there.”
Bethany is now in talks with a film production firm which she hopes can help her secure the resources for her trip and allow her to dig for her dad herself.
She said: “When I was in Syria, we went to a mass grave site and there were people digging there so I have asked the YPG to link us in with them. Even if they say no, I’ll find another way.
“I’ve seen what happened to my dad on the video but there’s always been part of me that hoped it maybe wasn’t how it seemed. Finding the body would be difficult. It would confirm it.
“But it would also allow all of us to properly grieve and bring the bodies back home so they can be put to rest.” Last month, it emerged that two members of the group accused of beheading Westerners – dubbed the Isis “Beatles” because of their UK accents – may be returned to the UK to face justice.
Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh are waiting to be tried in the US but the Crown Prosecution Service is set to review that decision.
Bethany is preparing for a volunteering trip to South Africa next year and hopes to one day follow in her dad’s footsteps by becoming an aid worker. But for now, the young mum’s focus remains firmly on being able to bring her dad home.
She said: “Until I have managed to go there and do the dig and know whether he is there, I won’t be able to move on. I’ll always wonder, ‘What if?’”
The Foreign Office did not respond to our request for comment.