Best of 2022: Anthony Loyd on his kidnap and escape
The Story
The Times
3.9 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 26 December 2022
⏱️ 52 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In the week between Christmas and New Year, we’re listening back to some of our favourite episodes of 2022.
We begin with one of the most riveting stories of the year, from The Times’ war correspondent Anthony Loyd. In their podcast series Last Man Standing, Anthony and Manveen investigated the kidnap of the British photojournalist John Cantlie. Cantlie had been taken hostage by Islamic State in 2012. His fate is still unknown. For Anthony, this brought back memories of his own narrow escape…
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Hosts: Manveen Rana and Anthony Loyd, War Correspondent, The Times.
Clips: BBC and CNN.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, David Aronovich here. In the week between Christmas and New Year, we are listening |
| 0:07.0 | back to some of our favourite episodes of 2022. Perfect for bracing winter walks with |
| 0:13.4 | the dog, long car journeys, or just slipping in the earphones when that garless uncle sets |
| 0:19.5 | off on another of his tails. We begin with one of the most riveting |
| 0:24.3 | stories of the year from the Times' war correspondent, Anthony Lloyd. In their podcast |
| 0:29.5 | series Last Man Standing, Anthony and Manvin investigated the kidnap of the British |
| 0:34.4 | photojournalist, John Cantley. Cantley have been taken hostage by Islamic State in 2012. |
| 0:42.0 | His fate is still unknown. For Anthony, this brought back memories of his own narrow escape. |
| 0:50.1 | Just a quick warning. This episode does contain descriptions of violence and torture, and |
| 0:56.6 | perhaps unsurprisingly, strong language throughout. |
| 1:09.3 | It all started as they were driving along a dusty road in Syria on their way to the Turkish |
| 1:15.9 | border. Anthony and his team had just completed an assignment and they were heading home. |
| 1:24.0 | We peel off out of Taurifat and we go this backcountry road and we go over this low brow |
| 1:32.4 | in the road, and there the other side is this black BMW X5 cruising, same direction as |
| 1:39.1 | us, slowly, and it's immaculate, it's gleaming. Whenever you see a gleaming car and war, |
| 1:44.9 | it's trouble because everything's covered in dust the whole time, particularly there |
| 1:50.0 | in Syria, and so suddenly the vision of this big powerful car just in front of us on |
| 1:55.0 | an empty road, just like cruising slowly, gleaming, I was like, fuck, this is trouble, |
| 2:00.7 | here it is. Oh yeah, I knew immediately I was like, absolutely fucking shit's going |
| 2:06.1 | to go down now. Anthony realised that things were going seriously |
| 2:11.1 | wrong. As the car got closer, just like John Cantley, Anthony shouted at the driver to |
| 2:17.8 | go faster, but it was too late. As we neared it, the driver's window wound down and this |
... |
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