A former employee of Doctors Without Borders (MSF) lifted the veil on Thursday in a US court on her kidnapping in Syria in 2014, with four colleagues, by jihadists from the Islamic State (IS) group.
Speaking at the trial of one of her alleged jailers, Swede Frida Saide recounted three months of captivity, long kept secret, part of which was under the control of guards with a British accent nicknamed "the Beatles" by their prisoners.
This administrative manager had arrived in Syria in November 2013 to work in a hospital run by MSF and lived in an MSF house with nine international colleagues.
Read alsoWhere is the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq?
On January 2, 2014,
"five of us were at home
," she said on the witness stand.
"I went to take a shower, when I heard loud voices outside."
Shortly after, a man, armed and hooded, breaks down her door, throws her clothes and escorts her outside.
She is placed in a vehicle, handcuffed and blindfolded, like her colleagues.
For a month, these three women and two men are moved from prison to prison, where they find other Westerners kidnapped by IS.
They enjoy a little freedom of movement and speech, but
"on January 31, three Britons arrived and that changed everything
," explained Frida Saide to the jurors.
The other hostages, who have already dealt with these “Beatles”, “had described to us psychopaths without any moral limit.
We quickly realized that was a good description.”
These three men are
"very aggressive"
towards their prisoners.
“They were full of hatred
,” especially towards Americans and Britons.
In mid-February, the hostages were moved to another prison, where a 25-year-old American, Kayla Mueller, was already.
For more than ten weeks, the four women will share the same cell, discuss, improvise games... The "Beatles" sometimes visit them and show themselves to be tougher with Kayla Mueller.
One day
“They told her that she had a jinn or a demon inside her and that they knew horrible methods of expulsion
,” said Frida Saide.
So, when the trio announces to the MSF employees that they are going to be released, they plead for the American to be released too.
"It made them very angry."
After they left, the young woman was handed over to IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi who, according to US prosecutors, turned her into a sex slave.
In 2015, the EI will ensure that she died in Jordanian bombardments, a version questioned by the American authorities.
His death, and those of three other American hostages, earned El Shafee el-Sheikh a trial in the United States.
This 33-year-old man stripped of his British nationality is accused of having been one of the "Beatles" of the EI.
