Daughter of Brit ISIS victim gets a call to say where his body is
She plans dig in hills above Raqqa after tip-off
THE daughter of beheaded Brit David Haines plans to retrieve his remains from Syria after being told their location in an anonymous call.
Bethany Haines plans to assemble a search team to dig for her father, who was executed by ISIS in 2014.
She told the Sunday Mirror: “I’ve made it my goal to bring him home and I won’t rest until that happens.”
Bethany said a male caller gave map co-ordinates that enabled her to work out to within a 1km radius where Yorkshireman David lies.
She does not want to reveal the exact spot but says it is in hills outside Raqqa. The caller’s number was hidden.
Bethany, 24, said: “They obviously wanted to help me.
“I want to get a team digging to bring back what remains of my father to his home and give him a proper burial.”
Her quest comes as the trial of ISIS fighter El Shafee Elsheikh, 33, goes on in Virginia, US.
Bethany is there and looked Elsheikh in the eye as the trial started.
He denies being part of a cell dubbed The Beatles including “Jihadi John,” who killed David.
The court heard Elsheikh guarded hostages and took satisfaction from their “horrific” torture.
He was said to have acted as a go-between as the terror cell tried to extract ransoms from families.
His lawyers say he was just a simple fighter, now wrongly identified.
Bethany, from Perthshire, Scotland, will also face Alexander Kotey, so-called Jihadi Ringo, as part of the terms of his guilty plea in the
US. She said: “He can’t intimidate me.”
Bethany added: I do fear my dad’s body was burned.
“I know other hostages’
I want to bring back whatever remains of my dad...
remains were because the ground was too hard to dig a grave.
My dad was killed in September, when the ground is very hard, and it’s most likely his remains were burned. But there will be part of him I can bring so me and my son can properly say goodbye.”
Bethany has had great support from other grieving families. She wants to erect a memorial to David and four journalists and charity workers killed by ISIS.
She told the Mirror: “If it was up to me they would’ve been put on trial, found guilty and executed before lunchtime.”
After seeing a video of the jail the accused would probably end up in, she said: “I’m happy they’ll have a suitably horrible time.”
A video of ex-RAF man David, 44, kneeling by Jihadi John, British terrorist Mohammed Emwazi, horrified the world in September 2014. He was kidnapped in 2013 while with a French aid agency.
BETHANY HAINES