Peter Theo Curtis

Peter Theo Curtis [a.k.a. "Theo Padnos"] (born 1968) is an American journalist who was released by al-Nusra Front in August 2014, after being held hostage for almost two years, and the former cellmate of Jewish American war photographer Matt Schrier, who escaped after seven months of captivity. Curtis got stuck in a window during the escape and was left behind after Schrier's efforts to pull him free failed.^[1][2]

Early life and career

Peter Theophilus Eaton Padnos was born in Atlanta, Georgia to Michael Padnos, a writer now living in Paris, and Nancy Curtis.^[3][4][5] He received his bachelor's degree from Middlebury College in Vermont and his doctorate from in comparative literature from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.^[6][7] He is fluent in French, Arabic, German, and Russian.^[8][9]

He moved to Vermont and taught poetry to prisoners of a local jail. His first book, My Life Has Stood a Loaded Gun, was written about this experience.^[9][10] He then relocated to Yemen, where he continued writing under the pen name Theo Padnos.^[11] Padnos began his study of Islam in Yemen at Dar al-Hadith,^[12] before moving to Damascus, Syria to enroll in an Islamic religious school.^[13] He published a second book, Undercover Muslim, about Islamic extremism. After its publication, Padnos changed his name to Peter Theo Curtis to make travel in the Middle East easier.^[14][15] Since he had declared allegiance to Islam in public, the book could be interpreted as apostasy.^[12] In 2012, he became a freelance journalist.

He then moved to Antakya, Turkey, near the Syrian border. He was kidnapped in October 2012 after entering Syria with the intentions of writing an article about abducted journalist Austin Tice.^[16]

Abduction and imprisonment

Curtis was held in a Syrian-run prison. His family received ransom requests between $3 million and $25 million.^[11] According to his account of his captivity published in The New York Times Magazine on November 2, 2014, he was held by al-Nusra Front and later by Abu Mariya al-Qahtani, who also released him.^[13]

Curtis considers himself "most responsible" for his kidnapping, believing he was reckless in crossing into Syria with smugglers he did not know and who held him captive. Commenting on the torture and mistreatment he endured at first, he says,

It seemed to me that I had been walking calmly through an olive grove with Syrian friends, that a rent in the earth had opened, that I had fallen into the darkness and woken in a netherworld, the kind found in myths or nightmares.^[13]

Curtis explained how he escaped twice, seeking refuge in the hands of the Free Syrian Army, and was twice delivered back to the Al Nusra Front.^[17] In Schrier's interview with the Jerusalem Post, Schrier claims that Curtis threatened to tell the guards about his escape plan.^[18]

Release

Relatives were not told the terms of Curtis's release, which came one week after James Foley's beheading by the Islamic State. A team led by editor David G. Bradley^[12] and the Padnos family contacted Ghanem Khalifa al-Kubaisi, head of Qatar State Security, who mediated for Curtis's release and according to what it told the Padnos family it was "on a humanitarian basis without the payment of money".^[19] The kidnappers had demanded ransom reaching 22 million euros.^[12] Curtis states that he was released to the UN mission in the Golan Heights.^[13]

A documentary about Curtis' time in captivity was released in 2016.^[20]

See also

• 2014 American Intervention in Syria
• Foreign hostages in Iraq
• Hostage Working Group
• Kenneth Bigley
• Nick Berg
• Daniel Pearl
• Steven Sotloff

References

External links

• Theo Padnos on Twitter