Now, a year after his emotional reunion with his children on the tarmac of a Spanish airport, the correspondent has revealed the depths of horror he and dozens of other hostages faced daily. 

In an harrowing account printed by the Sunday Times, he relives the moment Emwazi, now the world’s most wanted man, ran the cold blade of a sword across his neck, threatening execution. 

‘He caressed my neck with the blade but kept talking: “Feel it? Cold, isn’t it? Can you imagine the pain you’ll feel when it cuts? Unimaginable pain,”‘ Mr Espinosa wrote. 

It was, he continued, one of ‘several episodes of psychological and physical torture, privations and humiliations’ prisoners endured.