Mohammed Emwazi, the ISIS terrorist nicknamed "Jihadi John" by Western media, reportedly forced one of his prisoners to dance the tango with him while holding the man hostage in Syria recently.
According to CNN, Danish photographer Daniel Rye Ottosen, 26, told a local radio station he remembers Emwazi entering his prison cell, and asking him if he wanted to dance.
"Then he took me up, and we were supposed to dance the Tango together, John and I," Ottosen explained.
"At that point, I just looked down at the ground the whole time because I did not want to look at them — if you looked them in the eye you would just get beaten even more. So I had my head down and my arms up and he led me around the prison and then suddenly it just changed and he threw me down and kicked and hit me. Then they ended by threatening to cut my nose off with side-cutting pliers and such things."
Ottosen was held hostage in Syria from May 2013 until June of 2014, and was imprisoned for a time with American James Foley, who would later be publicly decapitated on video. Emwazi eventually appeared in the beheading video, as well as subsequent videos of American journalist Steven Sotloff, British aid worker David Haines, British taxi driver Alan Henning, and American aid worker Peter Kassig.
"James was not so strong with his motor skills so I taught him to stand on one leg with closed eyes," said Ottosen. "We did some partner exercises where you lean against each other and then stand up. Some very basic things, but something that is difficult when you have no energy and when one’s muscles have basically disappeared."
Ottosen was released after his family paid a $3.2 million ransom to ISIS.
He said that he committed Foley's farewell letter to his family before being released, and was able to deliver the message to them.
Michael Weiss, co-author of "ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror," said that Emwazi, born in Kuwait and raised in London, displayed "almost 'A Clockwork Orange' sense of sinister humor about torturing."
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.