Hh devoted his life to helping people in the poorest corners of the world but ended up being murdered in the vilest way imaginable. Ten years ago David Haines, from Perth, was beheaded by British-born terrorists who filmed the horrific act to put on the internet.
David, 44, was one of two Britons and four Americans butchered in the Syrian desert by members of the Isis gang dubbed “The Beatles”. The atrocities set off a wave of hatred and revulsion around the world.
But David’s older brother Mike dealt with his grief by founding a charity to combat extremism and speaking to schools about tolerance and forgiveness.
Today he talks of how he has found closure over the murder of his inspirational and much-loved brother – despite accepting that the family may never find his remains. He said: “I don’t need David’s body to find closure.
“I accept that his remains lie somewhere in the Syrian desert. I understand that many people would find it hard to move on, knowing that their loved one could lie in a mass grave, discarded and badly treated, because it’s inhuman, an affront.
“But in finding forgiveness for Isis I realised I had to accept many things that I can’t change. I don’t need David’s remains. I don’t need a place to go to remember him, because he walks with me every day, everywhere.
“It is part of the process for me, that allows me to break free of the hold Isis had over me while I felt hatred for them.” Isis kidnapped his brother three days after he arrived in Syria while working for a French aid agency in March 2013.
Eighteen months later, the Yorkshire-born dad of two was murdered shortly after US journalists Jim Foley, 40, and Steven Sotloff, 31. As well as being tortured, David was paraded before the camera that filmed Sotloff’s execution days before his own on September 13, 2014. Aid worker Alan Henning, from Eccles, Greater Manchester, and US aid workers Peter Kassig and Kayla Mueller were killed later.
The four-man gang, nicknamed The Beatles by their captives because of their British accents, shot videos showing a masked executioner dressed in black holding a knife with victims, wearing orange jumpsuits, kneeling.
Mike said: “For the last 10 years August and September have been a bad time for us because it wasn’t just David and our family who suffered in that way back in 2014.
“You start off on the 19th of August with Jim Foley, and then Stephen Sotloff soon after that, and we have had the date of September 13 ingrained in our minds as the day that David died.
“The image of David in the background of one video still affects me.” Mike said he had refused to watch the video that marked the end of his brother’s life.
He said: “I choose to remember David in my memories and in the family photos that showed him for what he was – not as a victim in an orange suit, who was being manipulated by terrorists to their ends.
“Ten years on, I think it is right that David is remembered for the good that he did, rather than the evil that was done to him.” Mike, 58, was speaking from his home in Dundee, weeks after suffering a stroke that nearly killed him.
He and his brother were brought up in Perth after their mum and dad – an RAF man – had moved there from Holderness, Yorkshire. David followed his father into the RAF, where he was an aircraft engineer, but became an aid worker in 1999, working in Sudan and Libya. Mike, who was awarded an OBE in 2018 for his work with his Global Acts of Unity charity, frequently broke down as he reflected on his loss.
He said: “Since I had my stroke earlier this year I’ve had my challenges and it’s been tough adjusting to life with a walking frame. Part of this stroke is emotionalism.
“Emotionally I go up and down, so I get quite tearful a lot of the time and I was fairly emotional about things before. I’ve also struggled with my speech, which can be extremely slow when I’m tired especially.
“But I’m aware of how much worse it could have been and I’m aware, of course, of the suffering my brother went through. So, David’s experience puts everything in context.
“I’m also watching the Paralympics on TV and I’m in awe of the achievements of people who come up against adversity, so I’ll be OK. I have had to take a back seat from my charity workshops.
“But I am hoping to be firing, almost on full cylinders, by Christmas, getting back into schools and telling students about the importance of shutting out hatred.”
Mike spoke of the great release he experienced when he looked into the eyes of one of David’s killers at his 2022 trial in the US – and offered him forgiveness instead of malice.
Alexanda Kotey, 40, and two other gang members are now in jail. The best known – so-called Jihadi John – was killed by a CIA drone in 2015.
Mike, who spoke at Kotey’s trial along with David’s wife and two daughters, explained: “I felt a weight lift from my shoulders, it
is something that has reinvigorated our work.
“That forgiveness was a real wake-up moment. Whilst I had hate for them, they owned a piece of me. But when I said, ‘I forgive you’, and I say this to students, ‘If you can truly forgive those who wronged you, you will free yourself’.
“It is very true. Do I have hate for Isis? No. Do I hate, even though he’s dead, Jihadi John? No, because he’s faced justice.” Mike says he still gets huge support from others devastated by terrorism.
He said: “I’m part of a wonderful family that nobody wants to be a part of. People who’ve lost folk to terrorism are bonded in a way that’s hard to explain but there is a power there.
“I got a call earlier this morning from one of my friends – a survivor – who was calling to see how I was doing. They were asking about my stroke, as you do, and it really did make a difference to me.”
Mike says he tries not to make his brother out to be too much of a saint. He said: “I often say that David was an arse a lot of the time. I recall the last time we met, we stood in the garden here and had our photo taken and that came after a pretty bad row.
“The unusual thing is that David was the one to climb down. But overall David was a driver for good, for unity. What he did do was go and help people, regardless of faith, culture, colour. That’s what made him special. He truly lived and breathed that life.”
He added: “There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think of David. There’s a thing that runs in my family, we say that you never truly die until your footsteps fade away – and David’s steps aren’t fading away.”
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