The daughter of ISIS beheading victim David Haines is inviting people of all religions to join a memorial service to celebrate her dad’s life.
Bethany Haines has revealed that families of other ISIS victims and survivors of the terrorists’ kidnaps have been asked to attend or contribute to the event in Perth on October 27.
She hopes the event will allow people to remember her dad for the warm and charismatic family man he was – instead of the hostage awaiting death in an orange jump-suit, a chilling image that was broadcast by terrorists to millions of people worldwide in a grotesque video of David’s murder.
Bethany said representatives from the mosque in Perth will be invited to attend, as well as anyone else who would like to show solidarity.
Bethany, 27, said: “It’s going to be a time for people to pay respects, not only to my dad, but to the other hostages who didn’t make it out.
“I’ve spoken to other hostage families and we’re going to have photos of not only my dad but some of the other people who were caught up in things.
“I do think it can be quite a powerful event but it’s one that we want to be informal and to be positive.
“I’m thinking more of a Scottish wake than a solemn gathering over a cup of tea, so we’re going to let people enjoy a drink if they want to and to share any memories they might have.
“I know my dad would want everyone to come together, to be able to mix, to have a drink if they want.
“He’d want them to have a happy time, rather than just sitting there depressed.
“I don’t want him to be remembered as that guy in orange suit at that dreadful time.”
Bethany said she wanted to make it clear that her family have never connected what happened to David with Islam.
She said: “We can see the way the world is going, with some right wing people obsessed with stopping the boats. And there’s race riots on the streets.
“We want to make a stand against that stuff to show that our family won’t stand for that.
“All that happened to our family really had nothing to do with religion. It was just a bunch of bad men doing bad things.
“Unfortunately, they twisted religion to do that and to justify what they did. They were terrorists, that’s it.”
Bethany said she will use the event to collect donations for the Hostage International charity, which supports the families of people in captivity, as well as hostages who are released.
David Haines was 44 when he was kidnapped then killed by ISIS while working in Syria for a French aid agency.
Prior to his own death, the former RAF engineer was paraded in a video released by ISIS, wearing an orange jumpsuit, that showed to murder of hostage Steven Sotloff.
Bethany Haines has vowed to travel to Syria to retrieve her father’s remains and is confident she has isolated locations where ISIS may have dumped his body.
Some nations paid huge ransoms to ISIS to have hostages released but the UK has refused to deal with terrorists.
David died in Syria on September 13, 2014, as part of an ISIS terror campaign involving the beheading of western hostages carried out by four men known as The ISIS Beatles.
He was working for a French aid organisation when he was kidnapped and held by ISIS. In 2022, British jihadist El Shafee Elsheikh was convicted for his part in the terror group.
Elsheikh, 33, was linked to David’s killing and the torture and beheading of other ISIS hostages. Bethany, who travelled to Virginia for the 11-day trial, said it had helped her come to terms with her father’s death.
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