Sean Langan: Kidnapped by the Taliban | P4: The Release

Hope is a dangerous thing.

Hope can drive a man insane.

“Now, if you're a movie buff, you'll probably recognize those words from the movie's”

short-shank redemption spoken by the character Red, a LIFA who's seen too many men crushed by false hope. For those who haven't seen it firstly, watch it tonight and thank me later. But essentially, it's the story of a man named Andy DeFrain, a man wrongfully convicted of a murder who ends up in prison, surrounded by men who've spent decades behind bars,

men whose hopes of freedom have been dashed time and time again.

Failed appeals denied parole, doors slammed in their faces over and over until hope itself

becomes the enemy. I've covered this topic extensively on my other podcast one minute remaining, speaking with

“real-life prisoners who like those characters have spent decades fighting for their freedom.”

And what they tell me again and again is that hope is exhausting. You get your hopes up, you see the light at the end of the tunnel and then that door shuts again and again until hope stops being a comfort and starts being cruel. After weeks in captivity with the very real possibility that is only way out was in a body bag. Sean Langen was dealing with that same double-edged sword, hope.

Chapter 7 - Hello, Channel 4 switchboard.

So at this stage Sean and I have been talking for nearly three hours and we were deep into his story of captivity, the fear, the uncertainty, the psychological warfare, and then Sean asked if we could step outside so he could have a cigarette and keep the conversation going. I said of course, though I was immediately worried about one thing. You might need that shot, leave that in so people know I've walked out.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. By the way, will it ruin your continuity if we now keep filming outside?

“No, we could do that, so I just the only thing I'm worried about is the noise of the bird, that's all.”

That's funny, that's the bird sound. Yeah, that was the sound I remember most in Ukraine. It's so funny to say that because there's one of the things that literally caught my ear watching that as well. For everyone listening, of course, you're most recent documentary, you went to cover the Ukrainian Russian War, which we'll sort of talk about later on.

But yeah, while you're watching that, there's like bombs dropping, gunfire, and just birds song, which I like it literally, that's one of the things that really caught my attention because you don't expect that. Yeah, so there were the literally mythology, you know, birds song is linked to who will go on one of the trenches. There was no birds song. They only hear the birds song after guns fall. And there I was in eastern Ukraine, and it's like being back in the summer.

It's the weirdest, most disturbing place I'd been doing. But what surprised me most, and where the literature movies have got it wrong, the birds didn't go full silent in their barragies and their artillery shells. I mean, the sound was so disturbing because you're all body. But the birds song, really, really dynamic. It's one of those strange contradictions of war. Nature doesn't stop.

Birds keep singing, even when humans are destroying each other. Sean had captured that perfectly in his latest documentary, where again, he was on the front lines of another war, recording the sounds of songbirds on the front lines while shells fell in the distance. But we'll talk more about Ukraine later, because yes, even after he was kidnapped and managed to survive that, he would go back to war.

The most worrying part of me was there had been known negotiations for weeks, months of feeling, which is why I was terrified because if there's negotiations, you know they want money. And that was when they were checking the security, how an earth had I got, so close to them. The negotiations we were told has started and hopes were raised. That's when I realised going back to earlier points, they need to baton down the hatches,

because when you can see light at the end of the tunnel, it's really dangerous, because when it

I took out the phones, my children, and then we heard that collapse had gone wrong,

I hit rock bottom. But one day the charming commander came into the room with a sat phone and he said, "Oh, negotiations have gone down, so we want you to call Channel 4 your broadcaster and tell them if they don't pay a ransom we're going to kill you." Being this charming guy, he put his arm around me and said, "Don't worry, we're not really

“going to kill you, we tell them all the time that's how we negotiate."”

So by this day, Sean was well over two months into his captivity, having not been permitted to leave his cell, it meant that the only daylight he'd seen in that two months was through the small crack in which he drank his tea each morning, so he's taken outside into the bright sunlight.

I step out into daylight for the first time into this compound and there's a small compound

mud walls, a few animals in the courtyard, but it was the daylight, and I've been in darkness, I looked down, first of all, because it was, I could the sunlight was blind to me and I looked down, I'd lost a lot of weight, I'd mown nutrition in there, mainly to let lack of vitamin

“tea, I think, from light and vitamin C, so I'd lost five teeth. I look at my skin and it was,”

I'd lost so much weight, it was like a parchment paper stretched over his bone, I could see, but I was covered in bites and flea bites and might, there was like dust bites in the room. It just looked terrible, but then I look up at this, the cleaner and the Hindu cushions, like the mountains, the snow cap peaks, and I could see the Hindu cushal lights for you, there's no pollution, so you can see the thin liner where they're almost the edge of the atmosphere,

and I'm looking up going out, it's like my life, it's stunningly beautiful, but it's like any moment that thin line could between this and death, and I'm just thinking how beautiful the world is, and then he's like, here you go, here's the sat phone, call channel 4, and it was a lovely afghan moment, he's a real business, he said, look it's a pay as you go, I paid $50 credit, so don't tell him forever, yeah, get on the quick, I was worried about the $50, I might, okay,

I suddenly realized I don't have the phone number of my boss at childhood, I don't know, so but I know the switchboard number of the channel 4 TV, so I ring up the switchboard and wait,

“looking at the beautiful horizon, I have exquisite fragile life is, and then I suddenly hear”

it connection and a voice, beautiful what's to my ears, and I just try crying because I could hear this voice, it's like enveloping me in a warm embrace and tone, and then I'm suddenly back to English, oh it's a bit of an old course, and I don't know how to explain this to someone at switchboard, try and out, you think that would fucking get to it, which is a long pause, and I go, he's got 50 bucks here, he's got to get on with this,

how many so long has he got, kidnap, you know, just put me through and she goes, and then I get voice mail, so I get off that, and I realize it shows on the phone, I've got like $10 left or $15, and I say to this afghan command, it's been very charming,

don't worry, we're not going to kill you, he's like he's never seen this before when he's clearly

kidnapped by us, and so I'm via my trials later who's having a nervous breakdown at this point, try and explain, and there is no passion for voice mail, and he's like, what the fuck is voice funny, and he paused, you've asked, it's the AK47, points here, I mean he says, don't these forum fuckers get it, we kill people, call them back, so no longer it's this we're all listening to

switchboard, it's to say what one's going to go, it's probably 24/7, but there you go, it's me again,

“I don't know, but I don't know if I can't know if there's a kill mail, I don't think there's”

anything, I don't think there's anything, whatever happens, I get voice, I just don't want to make a voice mail, please don't say no, and I get here, click, hi, you've reached the voice mail, and then I run out of credit, phone line goes dead, all I see is this, and he's just at a dark, and I looked down thinking he shot my poor fixer, he hadn't really shot over the head, and he was the Taliban commander was so shocked by this, he was like, and he looked in

me and he said someone wants you dead, this is never had before fucking hurt, and he's like

something's gone wrong, and he left the compound, back into the cell, and that was then the hardest time because you think you're about to be free, so we should clear up the situation regarding the poor lady on the switchboard, because it turns out she wasn't purposefully putting Sean through to voice mail, continuously and ignoring his request to speak to someone, she was doing as she was told. Months later, I found out what happened, poor woman was the encountering, the woman at

Channel 4 switchboard, caused she knew who I was, it didn't have any other Sean laying in kidnapped, the company they'd hired, the private security company, had advised Channel 4, if I call with the Taliban, not to answer, because that's often when kidnappers will say, if you don't pay, we're gonna cut off a finger and then you lose that, and so you look there, advice was you don't pay for calls to this poor woman, exactly who I was, could hear me pleading,

I still think to this day, I met the hostage negotiators, I've heard you felt confident with that poker move, because it could have gone wrong, but that was the advice to the poor woman had been told not to take the call. Did you know how long you've been there for and you were well aware of tracking time and days? Yeah, I was doing it. As I said, broke my time into routine survival, exercise prayer, reflection, take my kids to lunch, but there's no good

saying I've taken to a nice restaurant, because that uses up a minute of time, so you'd, where am I taking them? Yeah, what are we meeting? I would take my children on holiday, but have very

“detailed breakdown, I think we've got a Florida dyco, Virgin Airlines or BA, you were scape from the”

room, and I didn't do that cross my fix that did back, literally with the nail on the wall, and I could see how this passage of time was driving him insane, because the Taliban would say, right, we're going to go off and check to see if your spies are going to do an investigation, and when we come back, you either dead or your life, waiting for someone to come back,

who was always late, he would say I'm coming back or Wednesday and you'll know then whether you're

going to be killed or not, well, that's waiting for your own death, and then he's late, is just mad me. So I would not think of time, I was aware of it, but I wouldn't be so focused, I'd focus on my daily routine bonding with the families, but I would hear the radio, so I knew how long we'd been in there. Chapter 8, what is the life expectancy of a white Western man, dressed as a woman? So where Shaun and his fixer are being held wasn't some sort of

Fakani prison camp, it was a large, passionate family home, living there was a grandmother and a grandfather, three or four of their sons plus their wives. The family had been told by the Hakanis that Shaun and his fixer were spies, not believers, they were bad men. Now, as Shaun has mentioned, over his years working in these areas, he's learned their customs and how to conduct yourself around them. And so his greatest weapon was to bond with this family, to show them he was just another

human like them. During the captivity, after the initial being told your kid now, he then settled into routine, but that, you know, where I was spending every day bonding with

“the family and every time they came in. Because here's the thing that I discovered in all my troubles,”

in reasons where they be fighting the West. There's this always, wherever you go, especially in

that part of the world, a real love hate, fascination with our world. I think we've burned through this good will from the world towards the West, but whether it's the BBC or our democracy,

admiration and connection to that. You know, the beacon on the hill, they once described America,

so I don't think it's called that anymore. Of the values are universal values, so, and of course, in that part of the world, they love the BBC, they listen to the BBC world service. So at night when the family came in initially, it hated me, looked down at me. I would tell them stories about life in the West, and they were fascinated. I told them about the London Underground, they thought I was like, they're being dragons. You know, I told them about the London Eye,

“they thought I'd made it all up, but we bonded and I never forget one night talking,”

and I felt I was on stage the whole time, and a baby cries outside and I got my hand in the air

just to articulate about some story, and then I hear this baby cry and I close my hand and say,

that's the sound all babies make around the world and they cry. This bonding that he was doing with the family would eventually have a pivotal moment, a moment that shone to this day, still struggles to talk about. Probably the pivotal moment in bonding with the family came about just by chance that the Taliban commander had a list of questions we were, he was given that we had to answer.

I knew these like 28 questions, and you really felt it was an exam, got the questions answers wrong, your life depends on it. But a lot of the questions were proof of life,

“this is for them to negotiate and it allows them to kill you and still get a ransom because they”

get all the work like your favorite pet as a child, where you grow up, sort of thing a hostage to negotiate who would ask. So I was aware that a lot of interrogation questions were what's them getting proof of life information, the names of my school, other stuff they were interrogating, wanting to know what I knew about security matters in that part of the world, military to their own thing. So they came in one night and it was the Taliban commander,

two armed Taliban, and the family of the house was for five men, or sitting there at night.

So we were sitting on the carpet, the women who I never saw, but they became very part of my life

as well, because I could hear them, and as time or role of the family came to my side, I would hear the women outside sing, but also the food got much better, because they heard I had mountain

“nutrition for me, our husbands, and they made a real effort. They would walk miles to get some”

fresh vegetables. So they were an unseen part of this. But one night, the Taliban commander was saying, "You didn't answer all the questions we've given you," and I said, "Yeah," he said, "The two, you didn't answer the names of your children. What are the names of your children?" We say, "We need for proof of life, you know, if mine negotiates, then what's the names of your children be on those forms of life?" And for some reason, I couldn't

divulge the names of my children, because they were part of my survival, my little space, which I kept, because when they say, "You're safe, babe," it's being violated. I mean, it is, you're being violated, physically and psychologically, you've got no, when you're strip-served for things. But I had these children, and I couldn't bring their names into this situation, you know, it was four and three. And I just found myself sitting there,

telling English, "Get, I'm terribly sorry, I can't give you the names of my children." And the Taliban commander, who needs, he said, "Let her, you've got to, we've been ordered, I've been ordered to get the names, and if you don't, I've been ordered to shoot." And I just found myself no fear of being shot, I've made peace with my death, but just physically unable to say the names of my children, and I said, "I'm so sorry,

I," and I was genuinely sorry. I can't help you, and I really want to help you, and I said, "I wouldn't ask a passion, man, the name of his wife, but I can't tell you because I don't want to bring such light innocence into this dark business." And so the guy put, "Come to my head," said, "You've got to, and now the family are watching this, and they've been told he's an unbeliever, he's a spy, and so the Taliban's got to come to my head." And I just say, "I'm sorry,

you don't have to shoot me, I can't, I can't, I can't give the name." And I could see the command of panic because now he's like, "Well, this guy wants to be shot." So they put the gun on

I'm not going to have withhold the name, so I'm like, "But I'm so angry, and I remember,

“you know, my first film at the Norwegian News beheaded for accusing, and I was very careful,”

never to accuse the Taliban of being unislamic." But I couldn't help myself,

I had this sort of righteous anger, then mainly, but myself, he came up the name, so I went, kind of the accusatory, said, "Okay, you're one of my children's name, my first born eldest son is called Luke, and my second born, and it was the day before his birthday this day this night, and I'm having tea." So that, uh, his birthday was like the longest day of my life, missing it. So, but this is the night before his birthday, and I said,

"I was a reminder how you're always back in that room." So I said, "My youngest son's called Gabriel,

“I think there are Cainzall, Gabriel, and tomorrow he turns four, and he's got a wonder if”

his father loves him because he hasn't called. The whole room goes quiet because, uh, Gabriel is the archangel Gabriel who brought down the Quran to the prophet, that's an in the Islamic belief.

And so when I said, and I said, and he saw my son, he's called, second son's called Gabriel,

and I said, "I've seen the archangel Gabriel, the whole room inside all the men who've been told this guy's a spy and an unbeliever just looked, and I started crying like I am now, but it was anger. And they all just put their heads on and started crying because here is someone who's there's the tale about of Tottenham is an unbeliever, but he's named his second son of the most holy name in Islam, and known as the name to his second son in the Islamic name.

He's also prepared to die rather than give it up, and that was not what they've been told about

Westerners. And so the Taliban command was lost face, which was a dangerous point for me because

you don't want to ever amact situation them to lose faith. But he didn't know what to do and he left the room and at that point the family then stood up and had a talk on themselves, and in front of the Taliban offered me tribal protection. I mean they broke from the Taliban, a tribe is called panor tribal protection is they didn't believe the Taliban, but the stages for them to go against average, so they offered me panor which meant I could not be killed while I was in their house

and I was a guest and I couldn't leave the house without some promise that I wouldn't be killed.

“So there's a big change and that came from this connection and bonding. So that's why then that's”

why then later gave me a telephone to use because they they were now on my side. It's now been three months at this point of Sean's captivity. He's malnourished, suffering from the lack of vitamin D and living in darkness, and mentally he's shot to pieces. But all of a sudden he's chucked on yet another emotional roller coaster when he would be presented with the Taliban court's decision on what will happen to him. So the negotiations have gone by that

there was a point where they asked me to convert as a mother being brought in and I said to them this is after the call to travel for and the owner of the house is there who's who I've now bonded with. I said look if you're going to execute me I've got a slight bumping English because a slight problem with my troke you mind if I'm shot and they discussed that with the mother. I mean yeah yeah it's not going to happen but you we can see you and I said I'd like you to

shoot me because I liked him and he cried when I so that was the kind of situation because we were waiting for the commander to come back with that news or whether because negotiations were broken down the family were asking me to convert worried that the news was going to be being killed so we're having conversations. Then the commander comes back in and I got to give it to this guy he's he had a dramatic flare this guy comes in and he sits this down he's not bearing gifts and

they call it the Taliban call they have all this kind of formality to a kidnapped it's just

“whether in their mind they're not just terrorists this is a movement Islamic movement. So we set”

down I mean court you know adjustment unless the Taliban commander is man and the family and he opens the scroll now this point three and a half months I've lost weight management I'm sitting there and I am so battered by the whole reason and living with death so you're sitting there not much left

straight go and eat you read out the courts finding I never hear little reading glasses as well like

the old judge and he says the Taliban sureer hereby finds you innocent of all charges and I I live trauma and I go thank god for that I'm just letting that good news I'm innocent wash over me and then he says but the sureer voted to kill you anyway to send a message to other

“journalists not to try and this is the rollercoaster I'm like wait wait what I thought is innocent”

so now he's just told me we're going to kill you I'm like oh no and he pauses the drama and then he says but don't worry me and the

M. S. Rajkani we vetoed the sureer so you are free to go

I didn't laugh at this point I could but I was just like one minute your innocent next moment we're going to kill you but know you're it and I was just like whatever they find they read out the ruling of the commander the Taliban judge on my fixer and he is found guilty and they say but we're not going to kill you but we didn't believe them we thought I were

“they because they don't want to kill them here they can't you could forgive him for being a little”

selfish and just wanting to get home as quickly as possible however at the start of his or

deal alongside his fixer his friend he met a promise and a promise he was intending on keeping

we would either both live or both die but I wouldn't leave without him because that was really praying on his mind because there would be another instance where western judge has been kidnapped a ransom had been paid and the local journalist fixer was killed and a good friend of ours and especially my fixers the year before being kidnapped with an Italian journalist the Italians paid for his ransom and the Taliban killed him and the Taliban were aware that didn't make

them look good and they said to us don't wait you won't be like that case with the Italian you're either both killed or you're both there but I promised that I wouldn't abandon my fixer if Channel 4 caught me out so we had to be separated I'm putting a burka cheap patent plastic leather shoes lady shoes and they drove me down the mountain you get out in this bizarre the market full of our terrorists and Taliban and we have to change cars and I'm now wearing a burka they're

giving us sit on the side of the road and they say wait here we're going to switch cars and they say try and sit like a lady and I'm seeing all the side of the road like how does a woman sit in a burka and there were declassness here they are able to side of the street going and then I realized my god not only are they in powder that we're people not free to walk around people can't see the warrants face I didn't know this until you wear a

burka the filament is so fine you can't see the world so you're in jail but in this powder but you can't even see how I had to squint because it was so fine I'm like as I'm squinting I see 15 fighters come right towards me in arrows like guns I'm like what's the life expectancy of a white western man dressed as a woman on the side of the road and the tribe has I'd be like well what saves me was they don't look at women so they walked right by me

I didn't even clock you not looking at me and I'm like trying to sit there like fucking out of the invisible and that saves me

Pakistan 10 hours I'm now in a second safe house I knew it was full of wounded teleman and some

“two guys who were pouring me like touch me like that and I'm just that was my last 12 hours”

of night it was like wounded soldiers and these people who was severely mentally damaged patterned like a and I'm like now you're holding on back you you've only got so much left and then it comes to the exchange and the telebands on the phone and I could hear them disgustingly talking English we've got the package have you got the delivery money or something and I'm aware it's talking about one package and I and I've made this vow to my

fixer with I won't abandon you so I say I don't I refuse to be exchanged I'm it's either both of us you either get release my fixer would meet or fuck it I'm you might as well kill me

“and I turn my back on him and he said this is something I haven't seen but it's the most dangerous”

time for the terrorist because it changes where you're most likely to get ambushed by army so there this whole thing is now hanging on a thread and of course they can force me or shoot

me but I turn my back and I never get I just just pray to God and I and I'm aware I've got

10 seconds of faith courage I can only keep this up because every bone every senior my body wants to be released and see my children so I'm gonna I can't keep this up for long and but I say no I'm not going and luckily he's looking at me and I can see in his eyes if I fuck I don't need this trouble and he gets from a phone to this guy so I release the fixer and he says to the my hot the Americans it was okay we got two packages and and we released so they released me and my

fixer and I don't forget I'm bundled out the back of a car and push out they take the hood off and this is large American older man he was my host and in his smiles he says it shakes my hands says welcome home sir. Chapter nine a precious lesson in life so of course the physical or deal is over the captivity and the ever looming threat of being killed is done but now the next challenge begins and that's

“the after coming home is the hardest part of captivity by far and that's why it's post traumatic”

stress disorder you know mid trauma in any kind of trauma including kidnapped your lower part of

the brain in sync brain takes over your older pilot and so during my captivity I never had dreams

nightmares of beheading on death put that out in my head I think one night I was dreaming of having my throat cut and in fact I woke up and it was a guy in black sure with a knife but when I came out it was like that TV series homeland where first episode he can't sleep in a bed he's crawled up so if I felt so connected to my loved ones and to all living things dream captivity it was the opposite when you come out I disconnected completely and unfortunately you become an expert

now caught rising emotions as survive so you can also it's very difficult not caught rise them when you come out so you feel cold disconnected I also everything I'd been suppressing in the darkness of that room now my brain is sincerely news in the safe place started processing so for three months every night I'd be relying in bed not dreaming just seeing people being shot on beheaded violence three violence playing out in my mind I could like a roller film that's

schooling out and it was the point where to be a relief to shoot myself because it was exhausting three months of just seeing death again again like a film so there's a price to pay and people pick up the pieces but it's not linear you can feel okay you know a great moment when I left for the next few years I took my children on the real holidays either imagine taking them on they were equally as real and wonderful and dream like you know being Florida or Venice with my kids I took the Arctic Circle

dark setting and that was the reality was more dreamlike than how I'd imagined it might be it was wonderful but you're broken it's like my fixer had his breakdown in captivity because he'd

you're severely being smashed to smithereens by this experience and you've got to piece yourself together

after his ordeal sure would be angry resentful and regretful of some of his decisions however

“he says no in fact the ordeal reminded him of many valuable lessons and here's the thing I really”

don't regret it because what it was it really was to me a precious lesson in life of what important and it's stuff we all know but we forget which is to be if you're before your man have children to be a good son or daughter to your parents but it was very clear to me that my role and the meaning of life was to be a protection or provider for my children to give them love

and and then to protect and provide for the environment that's also the meaning of life is to

protect and provide for your loved ones to your children but also for the world we're living because there's two codependent but also very strongly to help those less fortunate for yourself because we are all connected all living things and how can we be happy when someone's suffering so cute and smile your guard or your crane and it just seemed patiently clear to me in my captivity that was there what was shown to me that we're all family and so that I to learn that

lesson was just something I think we know of in childhood and we're taught but forget was a great

reminder and also the great pleasures you know I still today because I was so loved mist it was

what I missed you know a nice meal with friends around the table the companionship friendship so now I still get a lovely deeper appreciation when I'm having over Christmas you know

“some friends having a dream family so that's what I learned in captivity”

Sean was back spending time with his children his family and friends and putting himself back together working on his PTSD however his experience wouldn't put a complete stop to his work because eventually he would go back to war and to the front lines ready to tell another story in his documentary Ukraine's war the other side where in typical Sean fashion he wanted to tell the other side of the story so instead of joining the Ukrainians on the front line he went and

spent time with the Russians obviously going somewhere like that when you're I suppose quite I'm quite a guest of the Kremlin show we saw they knew you were there the likelihood of you getting kidnaps and potentially beheaded is is low but you even have a dodgy moment where you go down

“you're taking into some area to be shown NATO weapons that they'd take in and then these”

special forces guys come down and it all gets very aggressive and very hard over you're still having those moments so I mean I mean are you are you just a little bit unhinged I love that so you're right not wrong after my kidnaps and I got PTSD but actually what it was I didn't stop going back I was stopped by broadcast like well I would not send in this guy off to because there were lots of invests here and things go wrong you know I've been being given awards for

I was doing back then and then you get kidnapped selling like oh he's a loose cannon that was bit irresponsible found to happen this like women it that actually made my PTSD worse because your reward for having been kidnapped and tortured is to remove what you love doing and you're good that making doctor actually wasn't so I felt that but here's a lesson I learnt much later at that point I was with the small it's only a small community of war journalists around the world to do it for

all their media is about you know a few hundred of most inevitably I would have been sent to Syria to do ISIS because that was the next go to without doubt I would have been and I look only recently I looked back and thought well thank god I was kidnapped by the Taliban because they treated me well it's okay and I lived if I had gone to Syria which I would have done hundred percent I would have been highly likely to been kidnapped by my friend Jim Foley and tortured and

beheaded by ISIS and that really trains things for me for that but to ask you a question is I stopped what I was doing because then I've got kids I've put them through this once

yeah there are risks in it but I was aware I wasn't quite pushing it like I used to but my kids are so good about it as well they're like dad you know you're unhappy not being making your doctor entries and then our young men who understand they've got their interests in life and they would want to go off and fulfill their dreams and so I you know I took limited risks I thought in that situation in Ukraine it's interesting we say they're about what you know

a missing part of the PTSD was sort of having that taken away from you because it's

“a massive Jason Fox the former SS guy or SBS guy but said actually he quote of his was I think”

I'll butcher it but it's something along the lines of part of PTSD is realising that you'll never

feel as alive as you once did and it's funny because I absolutely loved the match where it's danger red flag when I was back in Ukraine not back in Ukraine and Ukraine for first time absolutely loved the experience whilst also being aware of how tragedy and suffering but just being there living life seeing that thing is a privilege you know first and the people going for it but trying to tell a story yeah I felt cured of my PTSD he would also go back to the same region

in which he found himself kidnapped but this time would be the very last time only once when to see I went to fact the Middle East after my kidnapped 10 years to interview two ISIS terrorists who kidnapped and beheaded my friend oh my god and I hadn't been back to the Middle East since my own kidnapped I mean Afghanistan is not Middle East but deal with the same Islamic terrorist scenario and when I crossed from Iraq into Syria I threw up like pre-matched nerves

when you're an athlete before a big or football player before a big game I threw up and this producer it looks like oh and actually when I got into Syria I was like really jacked up again and I

“that's what I realised and that's bad that was me throwing up from adrenaline and I quite like this”

here yeah there's no it's a different situation and that put me off to the kind of stuff I've been doing a sitting down with my friends killers was a very difficult but that was part of my process of closing that chapter they when I shook their hands what was interesting I was told don't

mention your friend of James Furley but I couldn't help myself and I told them first thing I said

I was shaking hands and I said you know I might sort of tell you this you're a good friend Jahadi John Muhammadin was he killed my good friend I said of James Furley bizarrely knowing that I'd been kidnapped I knew who the guy I was a friend but I'd been in war zones somehow that made it easier for them to open up and the whole couldn't stop themselves opening up to me unlike when

“they bring to brief by FBI or American military and that was trauma talking to trauma even though”

I had no empathy simply for their need put trauma on to others but they were carrying this trauma some sort of weird weird common ground that you sort of found so that that was the one time I went back but I don't want to go back there because it was I put my kids through too much but I it messed me up

so as we wrap up this incredible story and the first season of this podcast Sean left me with

some parting words that I feel our rather apt especially for the state of the world as it is today so I will leave it to him the overwhelming memories I've got experiences of the common humanity and the kindness anyway you go in the Middle East strangers would give me food shelter the smiles the the laughter and the life I lived I lived at a hundred lifetimes of share and common humanity breaking bread with a guy in the middle of nowhere in the mountain from

different worlds it was such an intense privilege and pleasure and of course you know you we see the differences initially first very quickly you spent time with anyone from anywhere in the world and the common humanity are shared humanity is what is really most strong and it's maybe a cliche but so I go to these places not on the one hand yes I'm drawn there and it's also I know that's how I get a commission I can't say someone will you give me money to make a film where everyone's

having a lot of time yeah just doesn't work so the news but what I would still go there is because

but it brings out the best in people as well as the worst and to to be part of that to experience

“our common humanity and the loves and the laughter and the sadness is a gift and so I would recommend”

anyone obviously to avoid playing Russian roulette with our own life that's the disregard for life but oh my god we don't want to shut ourselves off from the world and to go out into the world it's been

“a great story what I'm looking at the moon in the sky it shouldn't come as a surprise but I can't sleep”

I don't know who's the winner tonight but it ain't me where are you now one of my fears the worst

and never when the night goes on forever when I'm losing track of time where are you now

“when I need you more than ever when I ain't got together let me know just where you are”

I will all you know why don't you hold me and the midnight out saying I'll be fine where are you now why don't you hear me get a call leader in the midnight out oh staring to space is plotting but I can't look away what the stars can make them really the ways but I see you more I like your way I'm reaching but I can touch your face the days they're

going to make me say it's all cool where are you now one of my fears the worst and never when the night goes on forever

when I'm losing track of time where are you now when I need you more than ever when I ain't got together let me know just where you are when I you know why don't you hold me and the midnight out saying I'll be fine where are you now why don't you hear me get a call leader in the midnight out oh. you.