The militiamen had thrown his father and brother-in-law into the back of the Campbells' SUV. As the cars played cat and mouse at terrifying speed, Angela was sandwiched in the back seat between the men shooting at Bruce. She could hear the broken bone in her upper arm grinding against itself. She was terrified that her husband was dying.
Darkness fell and Bruce lost sight of the militants. He sat in his car on the side of the highway, not knowing where his parents and brother-in-law were, whether they were alive or how to rescue them.
They had been taken to a nearby militia base, with dozens of young men wearing ruling party T-shirts and bandannas emblazoned with the slogan "100 percent empowerment." The militants drenched the captives with cold water.
"It was a very cold night. We were bitterly cold," says Angela. "I've never shaken so much from the cold for so long. The ordeal lasted nine hours from beginning to end."
They tried to take off her rings, but some stuck, so they discussed cutting off her fingers.
"I said, 'Look, there's a better way. Get some soap and water and I'll get them off for you.'" She removed the rings, but then the beatings started.
Freeth was whipped for hours on his back and the soles of his feet.
"They picked up this burning stick and just shoved it in my mouth and burned my lips," Angela says. The men forced her to sign a document pledging to withdraw the court case. Hoping to stop the beatings, she signed. But the document has no legal force.
The militants kept talking about killing them. At one point, Angela felt despair wash over her. She looked up at the stars strewn across the blackness. They gave her hope.
She prayed. Freeth, deeply religious, remembered a biblical phrase he had always struggled with: Bless your tormentors. So he reached out to the militants who were beating his feet, crying out blessings. He says he felt no hate.
About midnight, they were taken out and dumped beside the highway. By the time Mike Campbell got to the hospital, his breathing was labored and his veins had collapsed.
"Never once did terror take hold," Angela says. "All through this there was calmness, almost like a serenity that I cannot account for except that it was God that kept me from terror. I never once panicked. I kept my cool even when they were tugging the rings and some guy said, 'Let's cut off her fingers.' "
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