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| Moazzam Begg offered help over hostage release | Moazzam Begg offered help over hostage release |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| Former Guantanamo Bay detainee Moazzam Begg offered to help secure the release of British hostage Alan Henning from Islamic State, 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. | 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. | 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 murder was "despicable". | |
| He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme he had helped secure the release of hostages from extremists in Syria in the past. | |
| "I intervened by getting some other groups who could pressurise them to release those individuals and I got them released," he said. | "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." | "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 beheadings of two US journalists, James Foley and Steven Sotloff, and British aid worker David Haines. | |
| 'Heartfelt statement' | |
| Mr Begg, from Birmingham, said he was approached by Mr Henning's friends in December 2013 - just after Mr Henning was taken hostage - and he spoke to the government, approaching former Foreign Office minister Alistair Burt. | |
| He said he made it clear he would be making calls to people connected to IS but it was for the sole reason of trying to secure the release of Mr Henning, a taxi driver from Eccles, Greater Manchester. | |
| Mr Begg was arrested a few weeks later on charges connected to the conflict in Syria and sent to Belmarsh Prison, south-east London. | |
| Through his lawyer, he asked for another meeting with the Foreign Office. He said he wanted to make a video message and "deliver it in the language, terminology, the wording that Islamic State would understand". | |
| "To say that I myself was a former Guantanamo prisoner, dressed in orange and facing execution," he said. | |
| "So it was a very heartfelt statement I wanted to make in the Arabic language." | |
| He claimed the government did not respond for three weeks and when they did eventually come to visit him in prison, they wanted him to deliver a message through an intermediary of their choosing. |