ALEXANDRIA: A French journalist held by the militant Islamic State group in Syria has testified that he and other hostages were forced by their captors to sing a depraved parody of the Eagles song “Hotel California” called “Hotel Osama”.

“It was terrifying for us, a joke for them,” Nicolas Henin said at the trial of El Shafee Elsheikh, a 33-year-old former British national, on Wednesday.

Elsheikh is accused of involvement in the murders of American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff and aid workers Kayla Mueller and Peter Kassig. Henin is one of several former hostages who have testified at the trial in federal court of the alleged member of the notorious IS kidnap-and-murder cell known as the “Beatles”.

Henin said the words to “Hotel Osama” included the original lyrics from “Hotel California” about checking in but never leaving, but with a twist.

“If you try, you’ll die Mr Bigley style,” the lyrics went, a reference to British engineer Kenneth Bigley, who was beheaded in 2004 by Jordanian Abu Musab Zarqawi, head of the Al Qaeda terror network in Iraq.

Henin said he was captured in June 2013 on his fifth reporting trip to Syria. He was held alone for two days in a bathroom but managed to escape by breaking bars on the windows with a broom.

After running the whole night, he arrived at a village at dawn and spoke to two men in pyjamas.

“Unfortunately, they were IS fighters,” he said. Returned to captivity, he was beaten and taken outside and “hung in the air for a couple of hours” with his hands and feet chained together.

Henin was later placed with other hostages, including Frenchman Pierre Torres and Danish photographer Daniel Rye Ottenson. British aid worker David Haines and Italian relief worker Federico Motka arrived later.

Published in Dawn, April 8th, 2022