KIDNAPPED: AN ENGLISHMAN HELD HOSTAGE BY ISLAMIC EXTREMISTS

It was a blistering afternoon in June,1903.

Walter Harris: behind bars

Walter Harris, Morocco correspondent for TheTimes newspaper, had been brought news of a bloodybattle taking place near the town of Zinat in northern Morocco. Not wishing tomiss out on the action, he climbed onto his horse and headed towards thefighting.

As he approached Zinat, the air was filledwith an ominous silence. ‘The whole country was absolutely deserted,’ he wrote.‘Not a single person, not a head of cattle, was to be seen.’

As Harris rode across the plain, a singlevolley was fired. Realising he was in imminent danger, he spurred his horse androde away. But as he entered a deep gully, he saw he had fallen into an ambush.‘From every side sprung out tribesmen and in a second or two I was a prisoner,surrounded by thirty or forty men.’

Raisuli: welcome to my prison

It did not take long for Harris to discoverthe identity of his captor. It was the dreaded Mulai Ahmed er Raisuli, the mostpowerful bandit of northern Morocco.

Raisuli ruled his fiefdom with greatbrutality. His favourite punishment was burning out his captives’ eyes withheated copper coins.

‘By nature he was, and is, cruel,’ wroteHarris, ‘and the profession he had adopted’ - that of bandit - ‘gave him unlimitedscope to exhibit his cruelty.’

The Englishman’s life was now in greatdanger: Raisuli and his bandit tribesmen thought Harris was a supporter of theMoroccan sultan, whose troops had only recently wreaked havoc in their area.

Now, they gathered around him, ‘all anxiousto catch a glimpse of the Christian captive.’ They knew that Christian hostageswere far more valuable than Muslim ones.

Raisuli always said that capturingChristians was entirely legitimate. His crimes ‘were not crimes,’ he would say,‘because they were commissioned by Allah.’

Harris was led into a stinking cell andlocked inside: it was to be his home for some days to come.

One of Raisuli's hide-outs

The room was very dark and it took time forhis eyes to get accustomed to the gloom.

‘The first object that attracted my eyeswas a body lying in the middle of the room. It was the corpse of a man … andformed a ghastly spectacle. Stripped of all clothing and shockingly mutilated…the head had been roughly hacked off and the floor all round was swimming inblood.’

Harris had vast experience of Morocco andknew a great deal about Raisuli. He tried to keep calm and assess the situationwith a clear head. Yet he became increasingly concerned when he was led to aneven more gruesome corpse.

‘A ghastly sight,’ wrote Harris. ‘Thesummer’s heat had already caused the corpse to discolour and swell. An applehad been stuck in the man’s mouth and both his eyes had been gouged out.’

Sultan's forces: ill-equipped to deal with bandits

He was informed that the same treatmentawaited him if he tried to play any tricks.

The British Minister, Sir Arthur Nicolson,learned of Harris’s capture and opened negotiations with Raisuli. The bandithad a number of demands: most important of these was the release of his 56blood relatives, who were being held (alongside hundreds of other bandits) inthe sultan’s prisons in Tangier and Larache.

It was eventually agreed that 12 prisonerswould be released in exchange for Harris. But Raisuli kept raising the number,for he knew he was holding a valuable Christian captive.

Raisuli disguised as Sean Connery

Harris now played his cards very cleverly.He persuaded Raisuli to give him the names of all 56 relatives he wantedreleased. He then sent this list to Tangier and said that Nicolson would begiving it to the sultan’s ministers.

Only now could Harris pull off his mostdazzling and audacious coup. ‘You propose to kill me,’ he said to Raisuli.‘Possibly you will do so, but you have kindly given me a list of all yourrelations who are in the Moorish prison… This list is now in Tangier. You willhave the satisfaction of killing me, but remember this - on fifty-sixconsecutive days one of your sons or brothers or nephews will be executed - oneeach morning.’

Sean again: in The Wind and The Lion

Soon afterwards, Harris was released by afurious Raisuli. The Times correspondentdelighted in his trick and took great relish in describing it in his memoirs.

‘It was a splendid bluff,’ he wrote, ‘and Ifelt the greatest delight in using it.’ Not only had he saved his own life, but hehad infuriated Raisuli and all his tribesmen.

‘They swore and cursed and threatened,’ hewrote, ‘but to no avail.’

Not for the first time, Harris had got theupper hand.