The descent into hell began at 4pm, when the distant crackle of gunfire broke the sultry afternoon calm.

In Palma, a picturesque coastal town in northern Mozambique, ISIS-linked militants launched an assault from three directions, quickly overwhelming local security forces.

Armed with rocket launchers, rifles and machetes, the terrorists swept through palm-lined streets, leaving beheaded victims behind them.

Just six miles from Palma stood a $20billion (£15billion) gas project operated by French energy giant Total. The development had drawn a large community of foreign contractors, including several Britons.

Now, they were fleeing with local workers and residents to the Amarula Hotel, a fortified compound on the edge of town. Once a refuge for homesick Westerners, it had become the last line of defence against around 100 heavily armed insurgents.

The assault on Palma began on the afternoon of Wednesday, March 24, 2021. It triggered five days of mayhem that would leave hundreds of people dead.

One of the victims was Philip Mawer, a 58-year-old from Somerset who worked as a project manager for RA International, a Dubai-based company contracted to build accommodation for gas workers.

An inquest into Mr Mawer’s death at Winchester Coroner’s Court this week disclosed previously unknown details of his extraordinary bravery. Among them was his decision to turn down a place on an airlift from the Amarula Hotel so that ‘women and children’ could leave instead.

The hearing has also provided fresh insight into the harrowing ordeal endured by those trapped inside the compound during the ‘Battle of Palma’, as they fought desperately to stay alive.

On the first day of the attack, during Mozambique’s hot season, Amarula Hotel employee Eusebio Alves Pinto was finishing his shift when he saw people rushing towards the compound.

‘I asked them what was happening? They said the situation was not good,’ he told local television station TVM. ‘Then I began to hear gunshot after gunshot.’

Mr Alves Pinto immediately turned around and joined the crowds seeking shelter inside the hotel.

For Palma’s residents, the attack came at an especially devastating moment.

The town was not only crowded with contractors working on the region’s gas industry; it was also sheltering thousands of people displaced by fighting elsewhere in Cabo Delgado, the predominantly Muslim province where an Islamist insurgency began in 2017.

Before March 24, the Amarula Hotel had served as a home away from home for foreign contractors. Its landscaped grounds featured 60 air-conditioned rooms, a swimming pool and a seafood restaurant.

At first, the roughly 200 people sheltering inside could contact their families and describe what was happening. But telephone and internet connections were soon severed.

In a bid to attract the attention of passing aircraft, they arranged white fabric in the courtyard to spell out ‘HELP’.

Beyond an eight-foot-high wall were fighters from an ISIS-linked group known locally as Al-Shabaab. Despite the name, it had no connection to the notorious Somali organisation that uses the same name.

Recalling his first 24 hours inside the compound, one foreign contractor recalled listening ‘to this battle through the day and night’. 

By Thursday – a day after the initial assault – ‘mortar bombs were landing at our fence [and] the bullets were hitting the hotel,’ he told the BBC. 

By this point, the battle against the militants had passed from the Mozambican military to the Dyck Advisory Group (DAG), a South African private security firm hired by the country’s government. 

Despite the ever-present threat of gunfire, the company began airlifting people from the hotel in helicopters, which could carry six people at a time. 

They evacuated 23 lucky souls on Thursday. Brit Philip Mawer was offered a seat on one of the flights, but heroically turned it down. 

After another hellish night, Friday morning dawned with another helicopter evacuation flight carrying hotel manager Timothy Roberts – accompanied by his two German Shepherd dogs. 

Mr Roberts has been heavily criticised for ‘abandoning’ the hotel, and Mr Mawer’s inquest this week heard claims he ‘locked the fridges and switched off the WiFi’ before jumping into the aircraft 

But the South African defended his decision by insisting he had been acting on the orders of its owners. Meanwhile, the helicopter pilot insisted the dogs were put in the hold, so they did not take up spaces that could have been used by other evacuees.

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Back at the hotel, food and water supplies were running low, and the ISIS fanatics had encircled the perimeter fence. 

In their desperation, around 170 of the remaining residents decided to attempt a breakout – gathering 17 vehicles in the courtyard before bursting out through a gate. 

Mr Mawer took part in the convoy but declined a spot in an armoured B6 truck, opting to drive himself in a more lightly defended vehicle. 

When the convoy screeched through the hotel’s gates, it was immediately met with a hail of gunfire from the insurgents. 

Mr Mawer was struck with an RPG and killed. Also cut down in the convoy ambush was Adrian Nel, a South African who had been contracted to build workers’ accommodation camps. 

His father and younger brother were also in the convoy but managed to escape and hide in the bush. 

‘He died on a very violent and unnecessary day,’ Mr Nel’s mother, Meryl Knox, said later. ‘It’s just devastating, body numbing, mind numbing.’

Nick Alexander, a dual British-South African citizen, was in the final vehicle in the convoy that attempted to escape, with Mr Mawer just one vehicle ahead of him.

He told Mr Mawer’s inquest that the decision to flee in convoy was ‘provoked’ by news that insurgents were at the south of the compound and ‘the manager leaving on the Everett chopper’. 

Mr Alexander described breaking into a government vehicle to seize an AK-47 before heading to the bush to hide with two others. 

They spent two days crawling through the dense vegetation before finally being rescued. 

Only seven of the 17-car convoy made it past the insurgents. Between 40 to 50 people were inside – many shot and injured. At least seven people were confirmed to have been killed in the ambush, but witnesses believe it was many more. 

The survivors scattered into forests, mangroves and nearby villages to avoid capture by the militants, and many were later picked up by DAG mercenaries. 

While most of those sheltering inside the hotel had been rescued by the end of the week, it took soldiers several weeks to clear all the remaining terrorists out of Palma. 

As they did, they came across countless horrors – including the bodies of 12 people laid under a tree. Each of them had their hands tied behind their backs and their heads cut off.  

While the final death toll has not been established, more than a thousand people are believed to have been killed or abducted – the vast majority of them Mozambican civilians.

In the years that followed, French energy giant TotalEnergies came under heavy scrutiny for allegedly blocking a rescue attempt by the SAS. The company was also accused of failing to provide enough fuel for evacuation helicopters.

At this week’s inquest, TotalEnergies was said to have acted ‘contrary to the interests of Mr Mawer and everyone there’ and more people could have been saved if they had provided fuel for helicopters. 

In response, TEPMA1 – a TotalEnergies Mozambican subsidiary – denied having any responsibility for Mr Mawer and said it could not release fuel to DAG, the private military group working on behalf of the Mozambique government fighting insurgents and rescuing hostages. 

Concluding Mr Mawer’s inquest, Hampshire coroner Jason Pegg ruled he did not have the evidence to find that corporations had any responsibility for evacuation.

‘There’s no evidence before me that any corporation had or should have assumed responsibility to formulate an evacuation plan for Philip or affect a rescue for Philip. 

‘It might be that some within the hotel, perhaps Philip himself, hoped that in their time of crisis a corporation would come to their rescue. 

‘But because that’s what they thought doesn’t mean there was any responsibility to do so. The speed of the attack was simply not anticipated.’

Addressing Mr Mawer’s two brothers directly, Mr Pegg said: ‘Your brother was a true leader. 

‘He put his team and others first before himself and he did so at a time when it’s quite likely, very likely, he would have been in fear.’

Former “American Idol” contestant and church pastor Caleb Flynn told investigators he “didn’t touch” his wife, despite being accused of fatally shooting her, according to a recording of his police interview played for jurors Monday as testimony concluded.

“I’m telling you, I didn’t touch my wife,” Flynn, 40, said while detectives questioned him about the February shooting of 37-year-old Ashley Flynn inside the couple’s Ohio home.

“The evidence is a little contrary to that,” one investigator replied, according to the Dayton Daily News.

The interview recording was presented before the prosecution and defense completed testimony. Flynn’s attorneys chose not to call witnesses. Closing arguments are scheduled for Tuesday.

Flynn, a father of two who appeared on the singing competition in 2013, is accused of shooting Ashley in the head while she lay in bed. Their daughters, now 10 and 12, were asleep in nearby rooms at the time, prosecutors said.

Authorities allege that Flynn then staged the scene at the family’s Tipp City, Ohio, home to make the killing look like a burglary or home invasion.

Prosecutors have said Flynn’s motive was his nearly two-year affair with 24-year-old Alleigha Botner.

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Botner, who served as a worship leader at the same church, was among the 40 witnesses called by prosecutors. On the stand, she was made to read text messages exchanged with Flynn in which she said she wanted his wife dead.

“It says, ‘I want to kill her, Caleb,’” Botner read through tears.

Flynn responded, “That makes two of us,” Botner told jurors.

“I just wish I didn’t say this,” Botner said tearfully during her testimony.

Flynn told police that an intruder killed Ashley while he slept in one of the girls’ bedrooms. Investigators, however, testified that they found no evidence supporting the account. A police dog detected no scent indicating an intruder, and officers canvassing the neighborhood found no information pointing to a home invasion.

Defense attorneys argued that prosecutors’ case was circumstantial and incomplete, noting that the alleged murder weapon was never found. They maintained that the case relied largely on Flynn’s affair, which they said did not establish that he killed his wife.

Flynn has pleaded not guilty to aggravated murder, evidence tampering and other related charges. A conviction on the aggravated-murder count could result in life in prison without the possibility of parole.

A Canadian man convicted of sexually assaulting and murdering a 10-year-old girl before throwing her body into a lake has been granted unescorted temporary leave from prison, despite being denied parole.

Shane Ertmoed was approved for 60 days of unescorted leave beginning September 2. During that time, he will work with a highly regarded chef while serving a life sentence for the murder of Heather Thomas.

Thomas vanished on October 1, 2000, while riding her bicycle near her father’s townhouse complex in Cloverdale, British Columbia.

Her body was found three weeks later inside a hockey bag that had been retrieved from Alouette Lake, according to Global News.

Ertmoed, who was 24 and working in construction in Surrey at the time, was convicted in 2002 of sexually assaulting and killing the child, the outlet reported.

He lured Thomas to his apartment by claiming he wanted to show her pictures of birds. According to the National Post, he killed her after she resisted the sexual assault.

Following the verdict, Justice Wally Oppal said Ertmoed had been convicted of “the most horrific crime known in law,” according to the Vancouver Sun.

“You murdered a ten-year-old simply to satisfy your sexual desires… You are 220 pounds and she weighed 70 pounds. You used bully tactics and you were not content to just kill her. You had to inflict further indignity on her by dumping her body in the water and torturing the family even more,” Oppal said at the time.

Nearly 26 years after Thomas’s disappearance, Ertmoed is now set to spend time outside prison on an unescorted temporary absence.

According to We News, he sought the leave on the grounds of “personal development for rehabilitative purposes.”

The Parole Board approved the request, determining that Ertmoed “will not pose an undue risk” of reoffending, even though his case management team opposed the release.

He was denied parole as recently as last year after being assessed as continuing to pose a risk of serious harm to the community, Global News reported.

The approval includes “reasonable and necessary” conditions designed “to protect society and the victims.” Among them is a ban on contact with Thomas’s family and friends.

Ertmoed is also prohibited from entering more than 30 municipalities in British Columbia, along with several areas in other provinces. He cannot possess or access sexually explicit material, and he may not spend time with girls under 18 unless he is supervised. He is further barred from possessing a personal internet-capable device without prior approval and must disclose any relationship with a woman to his supervisor.

The Parole Board recognized the seriousness of Ertmoed’s crimes but said he had shown progress in treatment and personal rehabilitation.

Ertmoed has also begun taking medication intended to reduce sexual arousal, a treatment he had previously refused, according to Global News.

During the temporary absence, Ertmoed will live at a community residential facility under 24-hour supervision. He will also continue counselling and other rehabilitation programs.

He is expected to work four-and-a-half-hour shifts five days a week under the supervision of a Red Seal chef, who holds a prestigious Canadian professional certification.

Thomas’s family staunchly opposed the absence, as they have in every parole hearing, citing fears he would re-offend and harm another child. 

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‘They do not believe you should have this opportunity and that you should remain in prison until you die,’ the parole board’s summary of their testimony said, according to the Post. 

At a parole hearing in 2025, Thomas’s mother Jody Aspin told the Vancouver Sun: ‘I know everything and re-live it in my head daily… Just imagine for one moment before you make any decisions, what if this had been your child?’ 

The hearing heard Ertmoed questioned about the years leading up to the murder, where he admitted that his attractions began when he was 13 years old but as he got older the girls he fantasized about did not. 

He had been arrested in 1998 at 19 years old for sexually assaulting a sleeping seven-year-old girl that he had been babysitting with his girlfriend, the Sun reported. 

The charges did not proceed and he instead sought help from a counsellor, but said at the parole hearing that one of his ‘biggest regrets in life’ was not continuing with that counselling, according to the outlet. 

When asked about Thomas’s murder, Ertmoed said he did not plan to kill her. 

‘All I could see is the immediate gratification at the time,’ he said, saying that when she fought back he ‘decided to murder her.’ 

Aspin said in a victim impact statement at the time: ‘Every year around the anniversary of Heather’s abduction, rape and murder, Shane Ertmoed… demand(s) yet another privilege he believes he deserves. 

‘I am sorry, he does not.’

‘Why is this being allowed?’ she added. ‘Why are the victims not taken into consideration when these requests are being put through? Shane Ertmoed has been victimizing me and my family for the last 24 years. … Every time I get that phone call that there is yet another demand, I am paralyzed with fear.’

Aspin said she often relives the day of her daughter’s death and cries ‘at home, work, grocery stores and the car on a daily basis.’

‘I know he shoved her lifeless body in his hockey bag,’ she said, according to the Sun. 

‘And shoved it under the hood of his car until he was out of the complex and around the corner. This action left burn marks on her lifeless body. I know about moving her body from place to place until dumping her in the middle of Alouette Lake with the hockey bag weighed down with rocks. 

‘I know everything and relive it in my head daily.’

The board denied his parole at the time, citing that Ertmoed continued to lack understanding of the factors that led to his crimes and was ‘less than vividly honest,’ according to the Sun. 

Ertmoed apologized in his closing statement of his 2025 parole hearing, and said: ‘I never want to put anybody else through this process ever again. I just don’t want to hurt anybody else again.’ 

He had previously been granted escorted absences from prison in 2021 to volunteer with a non-profit organization to clean up parks and trails, the outlet reported. 

Just around one week after Ertmoed was granted his 60-day absence, the Parole Board granted the same allowance to Douglas Lambier, a repeat child sex offender who strangled a nine-year-old boy to death in 2005, the Post reported. 

Ertmoed was set to begin his temporary absence on Monday, but the date has been postponed due to an unclear reason, according to Global News. 

Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley, the longest-serving and oldest current member of the U.S. Senate, said he is concerned that a Democratic governor could name his replacement if he dies before leaving office, according to video of comments he made late last week.

Speaking Friday at the Republican Party’s annual Reagan Dinner in West Des Moines, Grassley acknowledged that, at 93, his opportunities to address GOP audiences may be limited. “I don’t plan on dying in office,” he said, adding that he nevertheless does not want “a Democrat governor choosing my successor” if that were to happen.

Grassley, who turned 93 on Sept. 17, is serving his eighth Senate term, which runs through Jan. 3, 2029. Should he die during the next two years, Iowa’s next governor—who will be elected this fall—would appoint an interim senator to serve until voters decide the seat’s future in the 2028 election.

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