Traveler: Pearl's Kidnapper Almost Got Me

L O N D O N , Feb. 28, 2002 -- Rhys Partridge is one of three British tourists who, with an American, were kidnapped in 1994 by Sheik Omar Saeed, the main suspect in the abduction and murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Danny Pearl. They spent several weeks in captivity before Indian police freed them.

ABCNEWS' John Quinones spoke to Partridge about his ordeal, the nature of his relationship with Sheik, and if he thought Sheik would ever change. The following is an edited transcript of the interview.

QUINONES: Can you tell us how and where you met Sheik, Omar Sheik.

PARTRIDGE: Well, I first met him in Paharganj, New Delhi, over, over a few coffees on one of the rooftop, rooftop restaurants there. We got to know each other, played a few games of chess. That was — that was where I initially got to know the guy.

QUINONES: How is that you met him? He just came up to you?

PARTRIDGE: No, I actually approached him. When you're traveling in a new country, you always want to check out what's going on. The travelers are the best people to talk to, to pick up any information on what — where to go, what places are safe, what places aren't. Ironically, he probably wasn't the best guy to ask on that matter.

QUINONES: What did he call himself?

PARTRIDGE: Rohit — Rohit Sharma. That was his alias at the time.

QUINONES: And how would you describe him?

PARTRIDGE: I think my description probably wouldn't be appropriate because I'm not particularly well-disposed [toward] the guy, but he was, on first appearance, he seemed a very amiable chap. He had a very well-bred English accent, obviously, of public school origin, and not, not an [inaudible] to me.

So you don't really imagine that type of person to be presenting threats. Obviously, when you're traveling, you seem very rich by, by the local standards, any kind of Westerner, and that can often open you up as a bit of a target to people [inaudible].

QUINONES: Was he friendly, charismatic?

PARTRIDGE: He was a little bit awkward, but friendly enough. He wasn't, he wasn't too used to socializing with people, I don't think.

QUINONES: And what did he offer to do for you?

PARTRIDGE: Well, he came up with this cock-and-bull story that he was, he was very proud of, of a very small village in, somewhere in Madhya Pradesh, that his uncle owned, and he was returning back there. And that was the pretext that he used to lure me, lure me away from New Delhi in that respect. [Inaudible.]

QUINONES: Where did he say he was from?

PARTRIDGE: Well, it was obvious he was from the U.K. He made no pretense there.

QUINONES: He told you he was a politics graduate from the London School of Economics?

PARTRIDGE: He mentioned the LSE, and interestingly one of the people in our group, because all the travelers congregate, one of the other people there was actually an LSE graduate, also, and that put him in a bit of a difficult position because he didn't want to give away too much, but they had a fair bit of common ground. It made him a little nervous.

QUINONES: What did he look like? How was he dressed?

PARTRIDGE: He was dressed fairly conservatively. Travelers do get a reputation of being a little bit degenerate.

QUINONES: Yeah.

PARTRIDGE: But he was — he was well dressed, sort of in line with what is expected of the local population, shirt and slacks.

QUINONES: And was he charming?

PARTRIDGE: Well, he was obviously trying to befriend me, so he made attempts to be amiable. I wouldn't say he was a bit comfortable at it, but a lot of people when they're traveling, it's difficult to [inaudible] total strangers and start talking freely with them. So, you know, you always expect a little bit of, a bit of, I guess, nervousness.

He did seem, he did seem a little bit on edge, understandably, with what he was going to do, and, I mean, I picked up on that at the time. I didn't think anything of it. So, I mean, perhaps I can blame my naivete for that, what happened [inaudible].

QUINONES: And the next day you meet again to play chess?

PARTRIDGE: Yeah. We played several games of chess, met up a few times, had several conversations.

QUINONES: And then he tells you that he's inherited a town from his uncle, right?

PARTRIDGE: Yeah, that was about the story, which he thought was very clever, and obviously would be of interest to travelers who wanted to see India, what it really is, but my real motivation was to try and get free lift [inaudible].

QUINONES: So would you say that he lured you into captivity?

PARTRIDGE: Well, I didn't volunteer freely. …

QUINONES: Did you know that in his diary Sheik wrote, and I'm quoting the entry into his diary, he said, "The strongest friendship by far was with Rhys Partridge. We have many common interests like chess, traveling, and writing." Was it a friendship?

PARTRIDGE: Well, I think the most important thing when you're traveling is striking up friendships. That's half the idea of [inaudible], and I certainly make an effort to be, to be friendly towards people, and the best way of doing that is to find any common interests.

And, I mean, there's no way on Earth I'm going to say I saw eye-to-eye with this guy, but there's always things you can find in common with people, and I enjoyed a game of chess, a lot of travelers do, and I enjoy traveling to places abroad. That's something else that's fairly common with a lot of travelers. And, yeah, we had lots of conversations.

He, certainly, I mean, he certainly warmed to me, and we certainly did develop I suppose a relationship is not the word, but especially in the time that I was captured, I had to make an effort to develop an [inaudible] with the guy. So I guess that's true to an extent.

QUINONES: When did you realize you were being kidnapped?

PARTRIDGE: When did I realize I was being kidnapped? When he got me in the house and put a gun to my head, that was a fairly strong clue.

QUINONES: In his diary, Sheik writes that "three of his confederates rushed in brandishing pistols." Can you tell me how you remember those events and your reaction.

PARTRIDGE: Well, that was, that was pretty much how it happened. They, they rushed in with the guns. I didn't, I didn't panic. I didn't really react. I suppose, I suppose the reaction I had was one of disbelief. I mean, how would a normal person react to [inaudible] like that? It's not something that you're really that prepared for, and I think I made a glib remark, [inaudible] if this is a joke, it's a terribly good one. But that was about it, and I just listened to what he had to say.

At that point, obviously, your mind starts racing, and it takes a little while to actually come to terms with what is now reality. It all seemed terribly surreal. It's not an easy thing to deal with being kidnapped, but that's [inaudible].

QUINONES: Yeah. Was the Sheik himself armed?

PARTRIDGE: He did pick up a gun a little bit later on when he was dealing with me. He wasn't holding a gun. His guys with the guns sort of stood back out of reach, which I guess was fairly sensible [inaudible].

QUINONES: So, obviously, his demeanor, the man you knew as Sharma, his demeanor then suddenly changed.

PARTRIDGE: Well, not probably how you would expect. He became very excited, and he was — the whole thing really turned him on, I believe. He'd accomplished what he set out to do. He was very pleased with himself. He was sort of on the verge of giggling, and that whole thing, but I knew [inaudible], but I think he wasn't far off that.

QUINONES: You say he was on the verge of what?

PARTRIDGE: Giggling. He was in a very, very excited state, very fidgety, and sort of looking at me and [inaudible] trying to explain what was going on. Yeah, he found it very difficult to hold eye contact.

QUINONES: And then, Rhys, how would you describe the whole month that followed? The whole ordeal, what was it like?

PARTRIDGE: The whole experience, well, funny enough, my greatest nightmare probably would be loss of freedom. I quickly came to realize that that is probably the most fundamentally important thing in your life, even before health. If you're healthy and not free, it doesn't do you much good, does it? I'd rather be sick and brave doing what I was.

But it was, it was a life-changing experience. It certainly gave me another perspective on life. It was a very traumatic experience, but like, I mean, you get from things what you want, and I think a lot of people could have taken the experience very differently. But I feel that I actually gained from it, ironically.

QUINONES: How were you restrained? Were you blindfolded too?

PARTRIDGE: No, I wasn't actually blindfolded. The guards wore shumarks [ph] around their head or [inaudible], whatever they could find. And I was, I was chained, initially, I was chained wrists and ankles to four stakes in the floor. I was in a small room, probably about 10 by 4.

QUINONES: And threatened repeatedly?

PARTRIDGE: I was always threatened that if I, if I did anything to make a noise or escape, then I would be shot, and I wouldn't — I wouldn't say I was, at that point, I wasn't threatened terribly much, but I mean that is a very threatening situation to start off with.

QUINONES: And then three other, three other hostages are brought in.

PARTRIDGE: Two other hostages were brought in after about two weeks. Bela Nuss was the fourth. Actually, he was taken to a completely different house.

QUINONES: Was it — I think you told the newspaper you were, you were kind of upset that more hostages were brought in because you had started to cut the chains.

PARTRIDGE: Yeah, I was very upset. I — for two reasons. First of all, I was trying to appeal to Sheik on a moral level because he claims to be mujahideen, a holy war, and all of this kind of stuff, and that was just absolutely rubbish, obviously, and he claims to have very high moral values. And I was saying, well, how can you really adhere to that, to that kind of philosophy like this? And I was trying to, trying to talk him into just, just having the one hostage.

Obviously, he wanted more, but I really didn't want to see other people have to go through that kind of thing, and I suppose what I was doing was kind of futile. So I was trying to make a point with him, and so — so that upset me to see more people come in. That, that really made me feel quite sick.

But the other thing was, while they were out taking these other hostages, I decided that I was going to have a go at escaping, and I'd been actively loosening the bricks from one of the walls with a spoon handle, and Indian mortar, not being up to very much, it wasn't, it wasn't really difficult.

And, also, I'd managed to find myself this little hacksaw blade I had in my medical kit, which I asked for, claiming to have a headache [inaudible], and I got my medical kit and cut through my chain.

And as most of the captors were about searching for new victims, there was only one guard guarding me, and I could see a stairway leading to, leading to a roof. And I thought, well, if I make a break for it, I'll probably run up the stairs, jump off the roof and get away, and that was my plan, and I was just waiting for the moment to do that, and, and then the next thing I knew the other guys turned up.

And that put me in a very, a very serious position because, if I didn't do anything, they would find the chains and probably kill me, and if I did do something, then their health would be compromised, the other two guys with me.

So it was not a good, not a good position.

QUINONES: Not a good position to be in, huh? You said you tried to reason with the Sheik and appeal to him. Did it have any affect him on?

PARTRIDGE: Yeah, it's — when I — I mean, he was an intelligent man. He wasn't a stupid man, and he hid behind a lot of this, this ridiculous indoctrination, which he had no right to do. He should have been able to see through that kind of thing, but he used that for his own means.

And the contradictions which were quite obvious I tried to point out to him, and this was generally greeted by a fairly angry response.

Obviously, obviously, [inaudible] asked me what I was saying, so — and his only reaction was aggression.

QUINONES: Were all four of you kept together?

PARTRIDGE: No, the American, Bela Nuss, was kept in a separate house, and myself and the two other British captives were held at Saharanpur.

QUINONES: And what did the house look like? What was it like, do you know?

PARTRIDGE: Well, I don't think they consulted Feng Shui when they were building it. It wasn't, it wasn't the most desirable residence on the planet, but I don't think that was really in their agenda. It was, it was a very, very basic, shoddy brick building with a flat roof, large kind of a courtyard. It's — it was really finished. It had dirt floors, pretty, pretty basic. The windows had been bricked up from outside. So not a very pleasant place, you know, to spend your holiday.…

QUINONES: At one point, the Sheik announces that the Western, that he's told the Western press that you're going to be beheaded. What goes through your mind at that point?

PARTRIDGE: Well, certainly not surprised. That was, that was fairly obvious from the word go. You get past the point where [inaudible]. I mean, I was fully aware that each government would have a noncapitulation policy towards terrorists, which is perfectly justifiable. It should be adhered to really. And I knew that just a Western backpacker would have no leverage, and obviously they aren't going to keep indefinitely demanding and just get up and kill me. It was just, it was nice fighting .

QUINONES: What was his demeanor when he made that announcement?

PARTRIDGE: He was, he was very excited then as well, and he was — the whole thing excited him. He loved playing, playing the game, and he enjoyed it all immensely. He found it hard to actually hide that fact.

QUINONES: Wow.

PARTRIDGE: I know that sounds hard to believe, but the whole, the whole attitude of these people I think are hard to believe, people that do these kinds of things, and feeling, explaining what they do in rational terms, I don't —

QUINONES: How did he say it? How did he make that announcement? What did he say?

PARTRIDGE: He said, he said we've told the press that, you know, we have hostages, and we wish for these terrorists to be released; if not, they're going to kill us by beheading.

QUINONES: He had just taken your pictures, too, right?

PARTRIDGE: Yeah. That was, that was shortly before that.

QUINONES: Is he a ruthless man?

PARTRIDGE: Ruthless? Well, well, obviously, he is. He decided he was going to go out and get what he wants. He's not going to let anything get in his way, certainly, not his conscience. I suppose that defines someone as a ruthless man.

QUINONES: Did you believe that he would actually kill you?

PARTRIDGE: Well, obviously. I didn't think he was going to let us go, and say, "Ah, look, we've given up on you," and let us go home. [Inaudible] there was no way on God's earth we were getting out of there alive, [inaudible].

QUINONES: And during this whole month, did they ever try to preach to you? Did they ever try to get you to understand their motives and point of view?

PARTRIDGE: Yes. Oh, yes, a lot of times.

QUINONES: What would they say, things like what?

PARTRIDGE: They, they would rant a lot about Islam, and we — we tended to try and mix in and look [inaudible], and they would pull out, Sheik, especially, would pull out little brochures, the same kind of thing that the Jehovah's witnesses — sorry — that Jehovah's witnesses drop through your letter box, not that I'm associating them at all with these kinds of people, but that form of literature, you know, the very pitiful, sort of almost childish kind of thing. This is a picture of Heaven, and that was one of the pictures he showed me. Here is a picture of Heaven, you know, where we're all going to go. And it was all, it was all very, very bizarre. You know, it's this kind of stuff, and it's very, very basic, very basic kind of thing for an intelligent man to really justify [inaudible].

But he would show me, show me this literature, you know, and about the Koran. And in the end, we [inaudible] to reading the Koran because we figured that was probably one of the best ways of improving our chances of longevity.

QUINONES: So you started reading the Koran?

PARTRIDGE: Absolutely. Well, you know, you have to, you have to understand these people. I mean, first of all, they thought we were, they thought we were Israelis, and that, to them, would have just been, well, hey, let's, let's kill these people and go straight to Heaven because that is their attitude. I know that sounds frightfully crass, but that, that is what they think.

And we made it very apparent that we weren't Jewish because we obviously realized that was a sore point, and we tried to make it apparent that we had [inaudible] towards Islam, and it was very difficult.

We thought about this very carefully, what we did. If we tried to ham it up and say, "Oh, my God, I've seen the light. Allah is God and all of that" —

QUINONES: That wouldn't work.

PARTRIDGE: Obviously. Well, we probably would have got shot on the spot for that. So we had to be a little bit more subtle about it, and we found passages in the Koran regarding Christian things that were, that were helpful to Mohammad. We pointed out the fact that Christians were friends. We made a point of saying that we were Christians and not Jews, and that kind of thing. And at the end of the day, I think that was certainly one of the things which kept us alive.

QUINONES: I guess the scariest part is, indeed, when you hear about martyrdom and how they're — you realize that they think they are going to be rewarded if they kill you.

PARTRIDGE: Oh, they're absolutely convinced of it. Sheik was, Sheik was, he was, he was just totally overwhelmed by this concept. He would talk, he would talk at great length about martyrdom, and he'd come up with all of these very strange comments about how, when, when the holy warriors were killed, they would ejaculate at the point of death because they had entered into Heaven, and it was so beautiful, and like that.

QUINONES: Geez.

PARTRIDGE: It was just rantings of a mad man. And he would just, he thinks of it [inaudible] that he would go to Heaven.…

QUINONES: What went through your mind when you heard about the Daniel Pearl case and that the Sheik was taking credit for it or admitting to it anyway?

PARTRIDGE: Well, there were no surprises about that. I was, I was certain that he would get involved in the same kind of thing again, and I made that very clear to everybody. And I was —

QUINONES: You were right.

PARTRIDGE: Yeah, there's no satisfaction in being right about that. But what, what really affects you is, having been in that situation, you know, you know what it feels like.

QUINONES: Yeah.

PARTRIDGE: And so I guess there's a certain kind of empathy with someone else in that situation. But the thing that really affects me is that he probably had the easiest time of it, and that may sound weird, but it's the people around him that suffer the most; his wife, who is six months pregnant.…

QUINONES: On November 1st, it's got to be the happiest day of your life, when you were freed. What was — can you give me as much detail as what happened that day and how it happened.

PARTRIDGE: So, well, I've got to say that that was probably the day — that would be probably the longest day of my life. It started at around about 3:30, 3 o'clock in the morning. I was very rudely awakened by the sound of grenades, which is not my favorite way of waking up in the morning.

And we sat up, and obviously our concentration, we're pretty wide awake [inaudible]. And the terrorists burst into the room, sort of backed into the room, firing as they, as they came in. And one of the guards came straight up to me and put a gun to my head, but thankfully they were distracted. The Indian Army [inaudible] fired [inaudible], literally. And that was enough distraction for us to relocate. We were ankle chained at that point, so we could actually move around. And we moved into the area which was actually our latrine, and sort of took shelter there.

QUINONES: There was a hole in the ground, right?

PARTRIDGE: Yeah, they dug a hole in the ground. We took shelter in there. And, thankfully, the Indian Army kept firing, and the line of fire came into the courtyard and kind of cut us off from the terrorists. And we tried to stay put there as they bashed their way through the wall at the back of the building [inaudible].

One of their number was cut down in the courtyard as he was trying to run through. He was screaming and going [inaudible]. It seemed like an awful long time, but eventually the Indian Army broke down the door and came into the building. That was, that was just as scary as anything else because they had been fired upon [inaudible] actually people with guns ready to go. If they see anything move, it's probably in their best interests to fire and ask questions later.

So we were making it very apparent that we were, we were not the terrorists by calling out to them. Thankfully, the guy in charge of the operation, Raji [inaudible], English speaking, and he heard us. He came in, and brandishing a [inaudible] gun. I hardly expected a Rambo-type figure, but he was a very [inaudible], jolly-looking man, sort of [inaudible]. He came in. So [inaudible].

QUINONES: There was video after you — you held a press conference then. After the press conference, you were walking around free, obviously.

PARTRIDGE: Yeah. Very, very strange feeling after — there's a kind of a threshold that you go through, which is, which is — it's very difficult to describe, but sometimes you think you may think that there's a good chance you're going to die, and that's pretty bad. Then you get to the point where you start thinking, you know, I've had it, and then to be given a reprieve after that, elation is probably the only word that describes that.

But, unfortunately, that elation was severely tempered by the loss of two lives in the Indian police force. These guys were shot as they came in, they came in to get us. So we would have, we would have been celebrating, but that really, that really put a damper.

QUINONES: The Sheik was arrested and jailed, and then you hear that he's freed in that prisoner exchange in 1999. What was your reaction?

PARTRIDGE: I was livid because I knew that — he loved what he had done so much. He enjoyed it so that I knew he would do the same thing again. He wouldn't be able to help it.

QUINONES: You knew he would do it again.

PARTRIDGE: Well, obviously, obviously, if you like [inaudible] terrorist.

QUINONES: Do you think he was the mastermind or was he just doing someone else's bidding?

PARTRIDGE: I'm sure he would like to think he was the mastermind, and I think that he would — he would very much like to take the credit for it. He also — he would also be a very valuable tool as far as the, as far as the terrorist network is concerned. He has knowledge of the West and understands the way we operate.

And I'm sure, I'm sure he'd carry out an operation like that, but really how hard is it if you want to kidnap someone? Say, a journalist, how hard is it? It's not a brave, dangerous thing to do. You're kidnapping civilians, an unarmed civilian by force [inaudible] deception. It's about as cowardly and pathetic to do, as far as no brains, no bravery, nothing.

QUINONES: Do you think there's a connection here to bin Laden on the Sheik's part?

PARTRIDGE: I can't comment on that. I have no idea whatsoever.

QUINONES: Now back to the issue of him doing it again. I know you said, of course, you thought he would do it again, but I think a lot of our viewing public really doesn't get it, that you knew so well from the man you had met that he would do it again. Can you elaborate a little bit again as to how is it that you knew he would do it again?

PARTRIDGE: Well, I spent, I spent a lot of time with the guy one-on-one, and when you're in a situation like that, it really grants you a heightened level of perception, if you like, because your brain is harder than it's ever worked in its life, and I did my very best to get inside his head and understand him to see if there were any points that I could use [inaudible], anything at all.

And we spent two weeks in close proximity, and I got to know the guy very well, and also the fact that he thought that I was a dead man helped a lot because that made him open up and say whatever he felt. And I think I got to know him probably better than anybody else, I think, really.

And certainly that's part of this, and it was obvious to me that he had the most intense, burning passion to do this kind of thing, and as a man, motivated man, he has an awful lot of energy, and it's — and it's what he wants to do.

QUINONES: [inaudible]. So when you hear that he's freed, to go do it again, if he wants, it just must blow you away.

PARTRIDGE: Ab — absolutely, and the other, the other hostages, ex-hostages that I, that I keep in contact with, regularly, we all [inaudible] and it was ironic, actually, because we, we had the same jailor for some time and we were having a reunion, and twenty minutes before they arrived, I got the call that he had been released, which is quite bizarre timing, but we all, we all shared the same opinion, that [inaudible].

QUINONES: And when you heard that the sheik had admitted his involved in the kidnapping of Pearl, what, what was your reaction?

PARTRIDGE: Very little surprise. You know, I'll, I'll tell you, disgusted by the whole thing, but certainly, certainly not surprised.

QUINONES: The sheik has been described by others as, as "fascinating company." Would you agree with that?

PARTRIDGE: If you're a masochist, yeah.

[Laughter.]

QUINONES: Very, very strange; yeah. Do you feel threatened by him today? By the sheik or his group?

PARTRIDGE: Well, I think everybody should feel threatened.

Well, I think any rational thinking person would be, would be threatened by, by, by that kind of thing. But the real threat goes to everybody around the world.

QUINONES: And I guess you shudder to think that if, even if he's put away, how many others might feel the same way, or so brazen.

PARTRIDGE: Yeah. I think — I mean, I, I believe sheik's one of a kind, but there's, there's an awful lot of people that would, that would happily, happily try to fill his shoes, I think. There's the sentiment in Pakistan and Afghanistan, not [inaudible] but — and I think, I think a lot of people would share his views. I certainly don't want [inaudible] use footage of people, people's attitude towards bin Laden.…

QUINONES: Do you find yourself still having nightmares about this?

PARTRIDGE: No, I don't, I don't have nightmares about it. But it has, it has changed me, completely, the way that I view my life [inaudible]. But I like to think that I [inaudible].

QUINONES: At the end there, you had a gun to your head. It would have been so easy to kill you.

PARTRIDGE: Well, it wasn't the first time we'd — they, they — they loved to intimidate us with their, the guns, and there's only, there's only so many times that a gun will precipitate a fear reaction, and after a while you do become [inaudible]. And, and that, that — that's quite an interesting thing. But I was verging on complacence about that. Didn't bother me at all [inaudible] the whole thing.

QUINONES: You were lucky?

PARTRIDGE: Lucky?

[Laughter.]

QUINONES: What's more impressive, most impressive to me, is you say that he would, he would get excited about these, these things, about the release to the press, about —

PARTRIDGE: Well, I think that's quite evident, that, that he, he relishes that kind of thing. That's, that's exactly what we would have expected. He, he certainly — he certainly made no attempt to be cagey about his, his actions. He wanted to take credit for it because he's proud of what he's done. [inaudible] and he wants the world to know what he does and stuff [inaudible].…

QUINONES: Rhys, thank you so much. I really appreciate your time and for bearing with us with the technical problems and blasting in your ear, but I think this has been a fascinating account and I really thank you for it.