A Canadian diplomat who spent more than four months as an al Qaeda captive in the Sahara desert says he survived because he never let go of the hope that he would one day return to his family.
Robert Fowler, who was kidnapped in Niger in 2008 and spent more than three months in captivity before he was released, has released a book about his ordeal titled "A Season In Hell: My 130 Days in the Sahara With Al Qaeda."
In his first television interview, Fowler told CTV's Roger Smith he endured starvation, exposure to harsh weather, snakes and scorpions and the constant fear of death during his ordeal.
In the end it was the love for his family that helped Fowler find the will to survive.
He remembers asking himself: "'Why do I want to go home? I want to go home to see them.' It's what kept me going," he said.
Fowler said he hadn't seen the infamous and horrific execution video of Daniel Pearl, the American journalist whose beheading was videotaped in 2002 in Pakistan, but he was highly aware that he could meet a similar end.
"It played over and over in a loop in my head," Fowler told Smith. "Every time I heard the tent going up I thought ‘This is it, this is going to happen.'"
He had good reason to be afraid. Fowler, who was kidnapped by the North African branch of al Qaeda along with his aide Louis Guay, was warned that his life hung by a very thin thread.
"On two or three occasions one of them came up to me and said, you know, 'We'd really like to be cutting you up into pieces but the boss won't let us,'" Fowler said.
Fowler and Guay first went missing on Dec. 14, 2008, when their car was found abandoned 50 kilometres northeast of Niamey, the capital of Niger. Their driver, Niger-based Soumana Moukaila, was also kidnapped but was released in March 2009.
Fowler had been appointed as the United Nations Special Envoy to Niger, and Guay was working as his aide on a peace mission in the region.
They were driven from Niger deep into the Sahara, into neighbouring Mali, where they were shuffled between rough camps, fed little more than rice and dirty water, often with little or no shelter from the harsh weather.
"It was cold, then it was extremely hot. And there were snakes and scorpions. And we were starving -- each of us was losing about a kilo a week," he said.
Fowler and Guay were both released in April 21, 2009, following extensive negotiations by the governments of Mali and Burkina Faso.
Fowler told Smith he was initially elated, but that joy quickly turned to anger when he returned home and learned how his family had been treated.
The RCMP, he said, delayed telling his wife and Guay's wife that video had emerged proving they were still alive, instead allowing them to fear the worst.
An officer who was involved in the case also rejected their inquiries about a ransom demand.
"This senior RCMP guy slams the table and points his finger across at her and says 'If you think that as long as I'm in charge of this case, one red cent is going to be paid to release a couple of high muckety-mucks, you're out of your mind.'"
Fowler said his wife and Guay's wife were "destroyed."
The Canadian government has long maintained Ottawa did not pay a ransom for Fowler and Guay's release, though it hasn't ruled out the possibility that other governments did so. And a U.S. State Department cable published by WikiLeaks suggested that a ransom was indeed paid.
Fowler doesn't care to know the details, but he's grateful to whoever did manage to negotiate the agreement for his release, which may have involved a prisoner swap.
"If something had not been paid and people had not been released, I would be dead," he said.
Fowler has had a long career in public service, working for Canada and the UN. He previously served as Canada's ambassador to Italy, as a former deputy defence minister for Canada, and is a senior fellow at the University of Ottawa's Graduate School of Public and International Affairs.
He said the process of writing a book about his ordeal has been a cathartic experience that has helped him move beyond the ordeal.
Guay, in contrast, has refused to publicly discuss what he endured.
