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| Moazzam Begg offered help over hostage release | Moazzam Begg offered help over hostage release |
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| Former Guantanamo Bay detainee Moazzam Begg offered to intervene to help secure the release of British hostage Alan Henning, he has told the BBC. | Former Guantanamo Bay detainee Moazzam Begg offered to intervene to help secure the release of British hostage Alan Henning, he has told the BBC. |
| Mr Begg, 46, said he thought he knew who had been holding the aid worker but said the government rejected his offer. | |
| He said Mr Henning's friends had sought his help and he had told the government he was going to intervene regardless. | |
| Mr Begg, who has just had terror charges against him dropped, said Mr Henning's killing was "despicable". | |
| He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that when he had been in Syria previously, he had been successful in helping to secure the release of hostages held by groups other than Islamic State (IS). | |
| "I intervened by getting some other groups who could pressurise them to release those individuals and I got them released," he said. | |
| "The problem is that the government in its attempts to demonise and criminalise me simply refused to look at anything to do with what I was about." | |
| IS released a video on Friday purporting to show the beheading of Mr Henning, and has previously released videos showing the apparent beheading of two US journalists, James Foley and Steven Sotloff, and British aid worker David Haines. |