The Sunday Times Magazine • 15brother’s murder inflicted more pain on us
than I can put into words,” he says, “and the
after-effects are still with us today — our
lives will never be the same again.”
He believes his parents, Mary and Chris,
were also victims, their deaths hastened
by the tragedy of losing their son. His
mother “gave up on life”, Haines says.
She died from cancer in 2015, a year after
David’s death, aged 81. Her husband died
of pneumonia in 2017, his dementia made
worse by the stress.
But he concludes on a positive note,
telling the two Beatles, “You no longer have
any power over me and mine.” He adds:
“I forgive you.”
I notice Bethany grimace. She does not
appear to agree with her uncle. “To get
forgiveness you have to ask for forgiveness,”
she said in her statement. “Neither of these
men have expressed one ounce of remorse
for their actions.”
Lucy Henning, daughter of Alan
Henning, another British aid worker
beheaded by the Beatles, tells the court
how she had stumbled on the video of her
father’s execution one day on Instagram.
She had kept blaming herself for his death
— for example, she sometimes used to
wonder if he would have gone to Syria in
2014 “if I wasn’t such a moody daughter”.
Then Marsha Mueller, mother of Kayla,
an American aid worker and the youngest
of the western hostages held by the Beatles,
gets up to speak. “I go to bed every night
thinking of her,” she says. Her daughter
was repeatedly raped by the Isis leader
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who later died after
detonating a suicide vest as American
troops closed in on him. Kayla’s fate is
unknown. “We don’t want her to be
forgotten,” says her mother. “She was all,
my everything.”
Judge Ellis wipes a tear from his eye. The
statements, he says, are “exceptionallymoving”. He praises the victims, saying they
“showed what is great in the life of this
country. Doing the right thing when no one
was looking. They were not self-absorbed
people. They did things for others.”
He says he is proud — “and you should be
too” — of the proceedings. The defendants
had been given a highly competent legal
defence team. “This was a fair trial, not
revenge,” he adds.
He sentences Kotey to eight terms of life
in prison before concluding, in the same
jaunty tone with which he began, “I wish
you well, Mr Kotey.” Bethany rushes up
to the convict as he is led out, exclaiming:
“I hope you go rot in hell.” As part of an
agreement between the US and UK, the
death penalty had been ruled out.
Haines stands outside the Virginia court
later. “Today is a victory,” he tells the
assembled press. “I have learnt of the power
of forgiveness. Terrorism has claimed manyThe relatives of the slain Isis hostages
share a WhatsApp group. “We belong
to one of the only clubs that nobody
wants to be a member of”
lives, I won’t let it claim my soul as well.”
Back at their hotel that evening the
British and American families gather for
drinks and dinner. Many of them seem
relieved that the day is over.
At the bar I meet Carl Mueller, 70,
father of Kayla, clutching a glass of beer.
“We belong to one of the only clubs that
nobody wants to be a member of,” he says
with a bitter laugh, explaining how the
relatives of slain Isis hostages have bonded
through loss and suffering to form their
own mutual support group.
In court earlier, Mueller, from Arizona,
had described how the ordeal had killed
his faith in God and America’s government.
He had added that seeing justice at work,
however, had restored his confidence in
government. But what about his faith?
“I used to go out and pray, I’d stand under
the moon and say, ‘Take me instead,’ ”Left: Mike Haines and his niece Bethany, left, with Barbara Henning and her daughter,
Lucy, at a memorial service for Alan Henning, right, murdered by “the Beatles” in 2014Left: David Haines with his wife,
Dragana, and their daughter,
Athea, c 2010. Below left: Haines
with his daughter Bethany from
his first marriage, c 2004