Courtesy of JNS. Photo credit: Crown Prosecution Service
The property in Brynteg, Ceredigion, in rural Wales, where three men tried to kidnap Israeli music producer Itay Kashti
(JNS) — The Israeli victim of a failed kidnapping attempt in Britain on Aug. 24, on Monday recounted the harrowing story.
Itay Kashti, a music producer residing in London, was ambushed by three Muslim men who, posing as representatives of Polydor Records, had lured him to an isolated cottage they had rented in rural Wales, ostensibly for a “music recording camp.”
A taxi picked Kashti up from his London home via a mobile phone registered to an unknown third party. Both the taxi operator and driver Mohammad Amowar were “innocent parties and as much duped as the complainant,” the BBC reported.
On arrival at the property in Brynteg, Ceredigion, both Kashti and Amowar were attacked by the three men wearing “anonymous-style” face masks.
The taxi driver managed to escape through the front door, but Kashti was handcuffed to a radiator before being told he “would be killed” if he tried to escape.
“They mainly hit my face a number of times. Punches and kicks to the face. In hindsight I realized that I was also beaten in my legs, as I later felt pain in my left leg, though I didn’t really remember that,” he said in an interview with Israel’s Channel 12 News.
“I was one against three, I couldn’t really do anything against them,” Kashti told Channel 12.
It was “a very bad moment,” he said. “I didn’t know if I was going to get out of there. They handcuffed me to a pipe that came out of a radiator, and I lay there. Suddenly there was quiet, the place was empty,” he continued.
He was able to lift his arms above the pipe, run outside and contact his spouse while hiding behind a nearby cottage. Police officers that came to his rescue about 20 minutes later unlocked his cuffs with keys that his captors had left on the property.
Later, he learned that the three had fled the scene after realizing that Kashti’s taxi driver had called for help.
It “was kind of like an Oct. 7 that they did to me there. [During the trial], I found out that they wanted money. They decided that I’m very wealthy, probably because I’m Jewish,” he added.
The three were sentenced by a British court on Friday to eight years and one month each in prison.
“What came up in their conversations is that I’m Israeli and Jewish and it’s okay [to kidnap me] because I’m Israeli and Jewish,” Kashti told Channel 12.
Mohammad Comrie, 23, from Leeds, Faiz Shah, 23, from Bradford and Elijah Ogunnubi-Sime, 20, from Wallington, London, pleaded guilty to kidnapping and each received a custodial sentence.
