NOTICE: YOUR VIDEO VISIT IS ABOUT TO BEGIN. NOTICE: THIS VIDEO CALL MAY BE MONITORED AND RECORDED. IT MAY BE SHARED WITH LAW ENFORCEMENT AND IT MAY BE USED AS EVIDENCE IN A CRIME OR CIVIL PROCEEDINGS.
SAMANTHA SALLY: Hey.
JOSHUA BAKER: Hey Sam, how are you?
SAM: I’m doing ok. How are you?
BAKER: Yeah, good, I mean, I have a lot of questions as I’m sure you can imagine.
SAM: Okay, you know what, I said that something, hold on just a second, okay, I’m really sorry, I just forgot something.
BAKER: That’s okay.
SAM: Wait just one —
BAKER: That’s a hell of a moment to run away.
SAM: I’m so sorry.
BAKER: That’s alright … are you good?
SAM: Yeah, yeah [laughs].
BAKER: I guess I wanted to ask you. you’ve spent years saying you are innocent — of everything.
SAM: Right. Right.
BAKER: You’ve just taken a plea deal.. and by doing this, you’ve admitted that you are, you’re guilty of terrorism, right?
SAM: Well, um...
BAKER: Sam Sally is talking to me from jail in Indiana. She has just struck a deal to avoid going on trial, pleading guilty to financing terrorism. And she’s admitted to helping her husband and brother-in-law, join ISIS.
SAM: Have you read the plea agreements?
BAKER: Yeah, but please continue.
SAM: Okay it states that I’m guilty of um, supporting my husband, or, it states specifically that my husband and his brother were ISIS members or wanted to be ISIS members, um, but it separated me enough from that, I believe, that I can deal with that, do you understand?
BAKER: Yeah, but it also says that, basically you sort of willingly helped them. Why did you take this deal?
SAM: Because the trial would be absolutely the worst thing that can happen to me and my family.
BAKER: And why, why were you so afraid of a trial?
SAM: I’m not afraid of the trial, I, I’m afraid of what it would do to my family, I’m afraid of what it would do to me; I’m afraid of what it would do to my kids, I’m afraid of doing any more damage than we've already done.
BAKER: But do you accept that the choices you made, put your children through some of the worst experiences you could imagine for a child to have, for years?
SAM: I accept, I accept that I, I was unable to make the decisions to protect them better.
BAKER: Sam’s spent the last few years telling me she was tricked by her husband into going to Syria with her young children. And now — overnight — she’s completely changed her story.
BAKER: That means you knowingly provided support for ISIS who have committed some of the worst atrocities we’ve seen in, in decades and you’ve supported that/
SAM: you’re putting me in a really difficult spot here [laughs] Um…… Listen, if I don’t admit to exactly what they’re saying in that plea agreement, they will take the plea agreement back, away from me, okay, so yes, I, I knew, I knew it.
BAKER: I’ve worked on a lot of stories about ISIS, and this is unique. An American mum, who was raised a Jehovah's Witness, ended up at the heart of the ISIS Caliphate in Syria. Her husband became an ISIS sniper.
Her ten-year-old son was forced to threaten the U.S. president in a propaganda video that was shown around the world.
Then, she came back.
So what happened?
Figuring it out has taken me from a torture prison in Syria, to an elk hunt in Idaho. I've met ISIS fighters, people who’d been enslaved by the group, FBI agents, and Sam’s friends, family. They all give very different accounts of what happened, and who Sam really is.
ANDRIA: Who is she? She’s an amazing dear incredible friend.
BAKER: Do you think Sam would ever willingly choose to join ISIS?
ANDRIA: Absolutely not. Why would she put her children in that position, why would she support something that would put other people at risk, that’s not Sam.
JUAN: Sam uses everything that she has in her ability to get what she wants.
BAKER: Like what?
JUAN: Her personality, her looks and just her intelligence….
CASSIE: She’s caring, thoughtful, loving. Argh She’s the strongest woman I’ve ever met.
LORI: I believe Sam ended up with ISIS because she wanted the notoriety for being with ISIS.
SAM: I don’t feel like I need to explain myself really, um, to anybody. I’m not a bad person. I’m not a monster.
BAKER: I’m Josh Baker and from BBC Panorama and Frontline PBS, this is I’m Not A Monster. Episode 1: “I love you, I miss you”
BAKER: Before we go any further, there are some descriptions of violence and some upsetting moments involving children in this episode.
Let me tell you about how I first came to this story. It starts in Iraq — in November 2016.
NEWSREEL: ISIS’s so-called caliphate is under attack… It’s been an effective summer for Iraqi forces… the battle to retake Mosul from ISIS is going more quickly than expected… Iraqi forces are saying it’s going much faster than planned….
BAKER: I’m there filming with Iraqi special forces. They’re trying to retake the city of Mosul from the islamic State group. They smuggle me into the city, hidden amongst ammunition boxes. The fighting’s intense — there’re ISIS snipers, suicide car bombs, and even drones rigged with grenades. Civilians are trapped inside a battle that’s street to street and house to house.
BAKER: We’re in an armoured car pulling back from one of the forward positions.
The roads are literally littered with debris - with cars er so we have to be very careful how we move because it’s a perfect place for an ambush. It’s going to be a long night.
BAKER: That evening, a local man gives us a place to sleep. Mattresses are laid out on the floor. It’s a surreal moment because inside this house there’s a feeling of warmth and safety, but outside you can still hear the explosions and the shooting.In one corner of the room are chain smoking soldiers who have drunk enough coffee to kill a small horse. In another, my colleague is sat with his phone watching a David Attenborough documentary
PLANET EARTH: A Snake’s eyes aren’t very good but they can detect movement.
BAKER: He’s sitting there in the middle of a war zone, looking at an iguana desperately trying to outpace a group of hungry racer snakes.
PLANET EARTH: So if the hatchling keeps its nerve it may just avoid detection.
BAKER: I drift off and get a surprisingly good night’s sleep, until I’m woken by the sound of more gunfire — only this time it’s closer
[Gunfire]
BAKER: I get up and head to the front of the house. The soldiers are right outside shooting at this truck — this massive truck. It’s too big to make it round the corner at the top of our street. So it’s reversing back and forth, back and forth trying to force its way through. And the soldiers keep shooting and shooting, trying to do whatever they can to stop it.
But they can't.
One of my colleagues starts shouting “mafakaka, mafakaka” — car bomb, car bomb. The truck is laden with explosives. And it’s coming straight towards us.
[Gunfire]
BAKER: I’m enveloped in this cloud of dust and shrapnel. I can feel bricks slamming into my body and my head.
And then there’s screaming.
And then there’s this really acrid smell of burning.
And then there’s darkness.
BAKER: That was the most painful x-ray I’ve ever had . Just lying on my back…. Literally lying on my back is very, very painful.
BAKER: Unlike most of the people who were there, I was able to leave and get treatment.
A few months later, I’m back in London, recovering. I've got a fractured spine and shrapnel stuck in my head. That’s when I get a call from an old contact — a person I’ve got to know through years of reporting on ISIS. We’d lost touch, but he’s heard I’m injured and wants to check I'm ok. As we’re chatting he mentions an American woman and her children — who are trapped with ISIS.
This moment, this casual aside, is how I first learn about Sam. I want to know more so he puts me in touch with her sister Lori. She suggests we meet face to face. So I head to America — to South Bend, Indiana.
It’s the middle of winter and it's snowing as I drive along a road that cuts through the middle of a graveyard. I’ve been told to look out for an apartment complex that’s styled like a medieval castle. I drive in through an arch that has fake guard platforms, and then past turrets that are dotted either side of the road.
LORI SALLY: Ready? Get… good. Drop.
BAKER: I find Lori, with two massive dogs — they’re playing outside in front of her pickup truck.
LORI: Alright guys, let’s go inside. Come on… [whistle] Come on Jewel.
LORI: I’m making cinnamon tea with jasmine and clove and I add just a little bit of chilli pepper and it has just a really nice bite to it.
BAKER: Lori shows me into her sitting room. There are swords on the wall, and a half-knitted dragon on an armchair.
LORI: We were very close growing up. I mean people thought we were twins. We never were without each other.
BAKER: Lori is Sam’s younger sister, they’re both in their early thirties.
LORI: I had a feeling that she was in some sort of trouble, but I didn’t know what was going on.
BAKER: Lori tells me she and Sam haven’t spoken in years. They had a falling out when Sam started dating a guy called Moussa. She thought they had moved to Texas… But then, on the 4th of February 2017, she got an email from her sister.
BAKER: Could you read some of that to me?
LORI: Ok so…. She starts off with, “Hey Lori I’m so glad you’re available, I really hope you can help me. I will have to be forward with you because I don’t have a lot of time. This could be my last time online. Almost every day 5-10 bombs are dropped around us. The shockwaves are insane. It rains shrapnel, everything from rocks to metal sheets to glass shards
The bombs feel like constant earthquakes and the sound is something you cannot imagine. The sound is like the crack of a lightning bolt in your head. Moussa brought me and the kids illegally to Syria — out of all places he chose Raqqa so we have been living here for almost two years.
I have no idea where I will end up if you don’t help me. SO please help me now! We are talking a matter of days not weeks.
[crying] I can’t tell you enough I love you, I miss you, I love you, I miss you, I love you, I miss you.
BAKER: Attached to the email is a video.
MALE VOICE: Is that your new toy?
MATTHEW: Yes it is, it’s my new toy…. C4, cortex fuse.
MALE VOICE: Nice
BAKER: A child sits on a living room floor with his legs crossed.
MATTHEW: 700 of these metal balls, these steel metal balls, three kilos of TNT, dual metal plates.
MALE VOICE: So what is missing?
MATTHEW: The detonator.
MALE VOICE: Exactly
BAKER: The little boy you can hear is Sam’s son, Matthew. He looks nervous, frightened even. To his left, you can see a rifle laid out on the floor, to his right there’s a big TV showing the execution of a fighter pilot by ISIS. And at his feet... are the components of a suicide bomb.
MALE VOICE: Ok look, since you’ve been good and you’ve been praying on time, choose one.
BAKER: You can’t see the man telling Mathew what to do.
MATTHEW: The. The 6 second Russian detonator.
MALE VOICE: You like it?
MATTHEW: Mhm. It's cool.
MALE VOICE: Well that’s actually the more powerful one. Ok you know how to put it on? Show me.
BAKER: It hurts watching this. Matthew is only nine-years-old. It’s hard to process. I’ve just narrowly survived an ISIS suicide bombing myself and now I’m seeing a young boy who seems like he is being groomed for an attack.
MALE VOICE: What do you do if you hear a helicopter and American pigs come down to kidnap you and your mother? What are you going to do to them?
MATTHEW: I’m gonna put my belt, I’m gonna hide it under my shirt, I’m gonna walk out and say. “Come save me, come save me! My name is Matthew. I’m American. Come save me, come save me!” …and as soon as the helicopter comes on the ground, I’m gonna pull, uh, my pin…
MALE VOICE: You have to wait ‘til they get really close.
MATTHEW: Aha.
MALE VOICE: Ok?
MATTHEW: As soon as the helicopter comes down.
MALE VOICE: Ok.
MATTHEW: And I pull my pin and I say, “There is no god but Allah and Mohammed is his messenger. Allah is great and I open my eyes and Heaven.” And God willing, God will accept me.
LORI: How could they do this to a child… Matthew is the sweetest little boy you will ever meet. How could they do this.
BAKER: Matthew and his younger sister are trapped in the ISIS caliphate. They’ve been there for almost two years.
LORI: I hate, I hate that the kids are there experiencing all that. They don’t deserve that, they don’t need to be there. And it makes me so mad that they are there, instead of playing in the park, and going skating and doing art projects and going to school, playing with their friends, playing with my kids. They are at war.
BAKER: At the end of the email, Sam tells Lori she’s found a man she says is a people smuggler.
LORI: [Reading Sam’s email] I gave your email to a guy who has helped a lot of foreign women in my situation, he is going to contact you immediately, I trust him with my life and my kids’ lives…. He knows what he is doing, and he thinks now is the perfect time. Please listen to him… He is putting himself in a lot of danger… Please make him feel special so he doesn’t give up on me… Thank you Lori.
BAKER: Then a message arrives.
MALE VOICE 2: Salaam-Alaikum… Forgive me for my English, my English is not good because I didn’t learn English in the school. Don’t worry inshallah all will be become good. And I will help her inshallah.
END
You've been listening to 'I'm Not A Monster’. Episode 2 will be available on Monday on the BBC Sounds app or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes will be available every Monday on the BBC Sounds app or wherever you get your podcasts.
