Former hostage Terry Waite has returned to Lebanon, 25 years after he was kidnapped and tortured by a cell linked to the militant group Hezbollah.
Mr Waite returned to Beirut last week to hold “reconciliation” talks with senior Hezbollah figure Ammar Moussawi.
He told the Sunday Telegraph he asked the group to help Christians fleeing civil war in Syria.
In 1987, as the Archbishop of Canterbury’s special envoy, he was seized and held hostage for 1,760-days.
Mr Waite, who had been attempting to negotiate the release of Western hostages, was kept in solitary confinement, chained to a radiator and often beaten.
The 73-year-old said the British people would think him “crazy” for going back, but added he wanted to consign his suffering to the past and forgive his captors.
‘Past is the past’
Mr Waite spoke with Mr Moussawi for about two-hours in a secret meeting in a Hezbollah stronghold in southern Beirut.
While he has been back to Lebanon since his release, Mr Waite did for the first time return to the spot where he was taken and to the Beirut’s southern suburbs where he was held.
Suffolk-based Mr Waite, who was accompanied by a Sunday Telegraph reporter and photographer on the trip, told the newspaper that “the past is the past”.
“I believe that reconciliation between larger groups, political groups, has to begin here with our own personal reconciliation.”
His return to Beirut last week was said to be intended to highlight the plight of Syrian Christians, who have left the country after civil war erupted between Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and anti-government protesters.
Despite the alliance between President Assad and Hezbollah’s leaders, Mr Waite asked it to provide assistance and aid to Christian refugees in the run up to Christmas.
