SURROUNDED by family members, turkey and all of the trimmings, this yr’s Christmas can be a world aside from Grant Bailey’s horrific experiences 12 months in the past.
The British support employee spent last yr’s festive season under- floor in a ten-foot-sq. cell in Afghanistan after being captured and held hostage by the Taliban for 150 days.
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He survived with little pure gentle, nothing to occupy his thoughts and measly parts of meals.
The previous soldier had travelled to Kabul to assist humanitarian efforts after the militant Islamist group took over the nation in August 2021.
He was captured on December 18 last yr, interrogated as a spy, denied cellphone calls to his household and even threatened with hanging.
His launch got here solely after the daddy-of-two from Dorset went on a 14-day starvation strike to demand higher residing circumstances and wrote a suicide letter that made its method to the Overseas Workplace.
Talking out for the primary time, Grant, 57, advised Cialcan: “After all the things I’ve gone by way of, this Christmas can be very particular.
“As a substitute of being with my household, last yr I was locked up in abysmal circumstances with no concept how lengthy it could be till I was freed.
“We can be making up for misplaced time with our Christmas celebrations. In some ways I know I’m fortunate to be alive.”
Grant travelled to a “secure” inexperienced zone in November with different worldwide support teams after Western forces withdrew following the Taliban takeover.
The group’s leaders had satisfied the skin world that they had turned over a brand new leaf, but lots of their guarantees — together with women being allowed to attend faculty — would later be renounced.
On the bottom, Grant at first felt secure serving to to distribute support, having been granted paperwork and permission by the Taliban.
Grant says: “We had no inkling something was incorrect. In truth, at one other lodge a excessive-rating Taliban official sat by our desk and advised us, ‘You’re security is our precedence’.
“They have been opening their doorways to the worldwide group so my thought was, ‘Why would they need something to occur to us?’”
But every week earlier than Christmas the employees have been known as to their lodge eating space for questioning earlier than being taken to a holding compound after which an underground jail.
He says: “The Taliban moved us in an armoured Land Cruiser and as quickly as we obtained to the constructing we have been led to a grassy space and stopped.
“I truly thought I was going to be executed, but I was taken to a foremost constructing the place my cellphone, watch, pockets, wedding ceremony ring and passport have been confiscated.”
Grant’s first week was spent in solitary confinement earlier than being moved right into a cell with others, the place they have been starved of sunshine and meals.
He remembers: “For the primary eight weeks there was no entry to books or video games.
“We have been simply sitting on the ground all day and night time apart from 4 5-minute bathroom breaks.
“We have been solely fed a ladle of stew, a plate of rice and half a flatbread between three or extra of us.”
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Grant was interrogated a number of occasions, threatened with courtroom motion and was accused of being a spy, which he denied.
He mentioned: “I can solely communicate for my private expertise, but mine have been psychological assaults from the Taliban.
“I bear in mind being in an interrogation room. I was purchased clips of me in army uniform and advised, ‘Grant, you’re a harmful man — we’re going to hold you’.
“It took so lengthy to get us out and we have been ignored a whole lot of the time.
“We went by way of so much. I wrote a suicide letter and had to go on starvation strike earlier than being freed.”
The costs have been by no means publicly disclosed — but an unnamed Taliban official advised the Washington Publish that the majority arrests have been on suspicion of espionage or serving to Afghans to flee the troubled nation.
False claims of wrongdoing towards Grant could have been provoked by his 22-yr profession within the British Military, which included stints coaching snipers.
Earlier than retiring from the army in 2005, to work as a bodyguard and safety adviser, his service included excursions of Northern Eire, the previous Republic of Yugoslavia and Iraq.
Grant claims it took practically two months earlier than contact was made with the Overseas, Commonwealth and Improvement Workplace.
Prisoners have been lastly allowed to see daylight throughout temporary outside workout routines and allowed a number of books, a chess board and the sport Ludo — but the thoughts video games continued.
Grant had been interrogated and threatened with the loss of life penalty a number of occasions, which he believed was due to his incarceration being reported within the media.
Regardless of the menace to his life, the ex-army man saved calm and insists: “I wasn’t nervous as there was nothing I may do about it.
“Having been threatened to be hanged quite a few occasions I obtained bored with all of it and taunted the guards to shoot me slightly than hold me.”
‘LEFT TO HANG FOR WEEKS ON END BY FOREIGN OFFICE’
Negotiations between the Taliban and the FCDO had stalled, which Grant’s captors insisted was due to Britain “enjoying video games”.
As his circumstances worsened, he remembers merciless ways together with being led into an workplace with “a giant unfold of meals” that not one of the prisoners was allowed to eat.
Grant was denied cellphone calls with his deeply involved household after the Taliban lied to British officers and mentioned he “didn’t need to communicate to his family members”.
The remedy of prisoners was “going downhill” and with little information from the FCDO, Grant determined he had no different possibility than to take drastic motion.
He says: “Meals quantities have been diminished and train had been stopped — even going within the hall — so we have been within the cell for 23-and-a-half hours a day.
“Then a guard grabbed one of many people, who was in cell 5 with me, and pushed him. I’d not seen that earlier than.
“By this level, I determined sufficient was sufficient and on Could 25 I mentioned ‘Proper, I am on starvation strike now’.”
It took two weeks for Grant’s calls for to be met by the Taliban — who risked a breakdown in negotiations and vast condemnation had the previous soldier died.
Grant remembers: “The lead interrogator got here to my cell and gave me two hours to begin consuming or I could be taken to a hospital and placed on IV drips.
“I mentioned my calls for with him and he agreed to them — pizza, rooster kebabs, mushy drinks and sweets to be introduced in for everybody and extra train intervals.”
Information of Grant’s starvation strike made its method again to the FCDO and, 4 days later, on June 12, he was lastly launched after greater than six months of imprisonment.
Extra inmates have been launched simply over every week later after which Overseas Secretary Liz Truss tweeted her reward of British diplomats.
No cash was believed to have been exchanged for the prisoners but the Authorities division publicly apologised “for any breach of Afghan tradition, customs or legal guidelines”.
They claimed it was a “mistake” for British nationals to have gone to the nation and mentioned on the time it “regrets this episode”.
In September, as Liz Truss was working for Tory chief, Grant hit out at her for the delay in getting him launched, blasting: “I don’t need her to be the subsequent Prime Minister.”
Grant hopes classes will be discovered from his expertise and felt they have been “left to hold on for weeks on finish” by the FCDO.
The veteran was reunited with his household and regardless of struggling eyesight points due to a scarcity of sunshine and choosing up a slight stutter from his imprisonment, he stays surprisingly chipper.
Grant says: “I obtained a medical with a GP inside a few days since you don’t know what you’re going to choose up. I misplaced 2st but fortunately a pint and a pie has sorted that out.”
Whereas he’s relieved to be out of Kabul he isn’t longing for the longer term below Taliban rule and claims civilians he has spoken to “will not be completely happy both”.
He mentioned: “After 20 years of getting ready to rule their nation, the Taliban nonetheless haven’t obtained a clue what they are doing.”
Extra reporting: Andrew Drury and Richard Ashmore
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