Briton Captive For Months Before Beheading

Women arrive at the Gao market, northern Mali

A market in Mali in the area where two Swiss tourists were kidnapped previously

Briton Edwin Dyer was captured in Mali and held hostage for more than four months before being murdered.

His ordeal started with a so-called "show execution" where kidnappers fired a gun just an inch away from the head of a member of his party as they attacked the group's convoy.

He was then taken with three other tourists - two Swiss citizens and a German woman - who were on their way back from a festival of nomad culture at Anderamboukane in Mali on January 22.

Mr Dyer, who spoke fluent German and was working in Austria, was stopped near the border with Niger by armed Tuareg rebels, who shot out the tyres of the first vehicle in his convoy.

The driver of the second car turned it around and escaped across the bush. It was hit by three bullets but nobody was hurt.

Local travel company staff later found the shocked cook who was accompanying the tourists. He said he had been subjected to the "show execution".

Werner Gartung, chief executive of German tour operator Oase Reisen, said: "The three cars were still in Mali on the way back to Niger.


"The second car with the three clients could turn and drive across the bush three bullets did hit the car, but nobody was hurt."

In total there were seven tourists in the group visiting the Anderamboukane festival in January, which is billed as a "trans-frontier celebration of Tuareg culture, music, sports, and crafts".

In recent years northern Mali has been the scene of violent clashes between Tuareg rebels and the Malian army.

The German woman and one of the Swiss tourists were later released, along with a Canadian diplomat and his assistant, who were taken hostage in a separate incident.


In February, an Islamic extremist group claimed responsibility for the kidnapping.

According to Site Intelligence, a US group which monitors extremist websites, the claim came from al Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (Aqim).

On April 26, al Qaida posted a statement on an Islamic website stating that they would execute Mr Dyer unless the UK authorities released Jordanian extremist Abu Qatada from prison within 20 days.

The radical cleric was first arrested in the wake of the September 11 terror attacks and has been described as "al Qaida's spiritual leader in Europe".

He has been in prison since 2005 and is awaiting deportation to Jordan. A multimillion-pound ransom is also thought to have been demanded.