To you who captured me, who detained me, who abused me, I want to say that you have lost.

You have failed in your project to establish an insanely sectarian and reactionary dictatorship in Syria. Your long sabotage, contemptuous of Syrians' aspirations to live free and dignified lives, which for over a decade enabled Bashar al-Assad – whom you pretended to be fighting against – to hold on to power, has failed. The Syrians have freed themselves and they deserve the admiration of us all. You can't imagine my joy at seeing Syria free as your trial opens. I'm well aware that there are still immense challenges ahead, which call for caution, but Syria is free! Free from Bashar's yoke, and from yours.

Throughout the proceedings, as we recount in court the ordeal you inflicted on your Western hostages, even killing eight of us, we must remember that the suffering endured by our small group was but a drop in the ocean of those you inflicted on millions of Syrians. Your cruelty can only be compared to that of Bashar al-Assad's henchmen.

You then tried to sow the seeds of death and fear in Europe and the rest of the world. And here too, you have lost. Our societies have stood firm. They have developed resistance. Here, laughter to mock you. There, solidarity to help those you had attacked. Of course, your blows hurt us, but we thwarted your plans. We stood together.

You've lost with me too. By making me a hostage, by torturing me, you denied my humanity. You saw me as your thing. A verfügbar toy, "disposable" at will. What did you want? My hatred? That I become a bitter agitator calling for revenge? You won't get it. It would give you far too much pleasure for me to grant it. You deserve nothing but my contempt.

Neither my hatred nor my fear

As Diane Foley, the mother of one of my co-hostages whom you murdered, put it so well, hatred is a negative-sum game. Those who propagate it don't just hurt those they target. They also inevitably end up hurting themselves and those close to them with the hatred they have sown.

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