DURING their four long months of hoping and praying he was still alive, friends of abducted aid worker Khalil Dale clung to their belief he would be "another John McCarthy".
Yesterday, their hopes were extinguished, in brutal fashion, that the 60-year-old Red Cross worker would end up like the British journalist, who was freed from captivity by an Islamic group in Lebanon in 1991.
After the Foreign Office announced the death of the Scot, who was abducted from the city of Quetta in south-west Pakistan almost four months ago, his friend Sheila Howat summed up their sense of loss.
"It's dreadful what has happened to him, really awful," said Ms Howat, who had worked with Mr Dale at Dumfries and Galloway Royal Infirmary. "The world has lost someone who really cared for others. I had hoped he would be another John McCarthy and would be set free – but it wasn't to be."
Mr Dale's killing,which was described by Foreign Secretary William Hague as a "senseless and cruel act", ended an ordeal which began for him, and for those close to him, when he was kidnapped on January 5 in Quetta, the provincial capital of Balochistan province and a notoriously volatile city.
His body was found in an orchard on the outskirts of the city yesterday with a note saying he had been killed by the Taliban.
His career as a dedicated aid worker over 30 years had taken him to many of the world's trouble spots, and he had been in northern Pakistan for almost a year when he was taken hostage. He was working as a health programme manager in Pakistan when he was kidnapped.
Born in Yemen, Ken Dale had changed his name to Khalil when he became a Muslim. The mild-mannered bachelor began his career as a casualty nurse at Dumfries Infirmary but left in 1976 to work as a medic in the North Sea.
He then became an aid worker with the Red Cross, working in Iran, where he was arrested and tortured during the revolution, and also in Libya, Kenya, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Afghanistan.
He took a break to study anthropology and geography at London University's School of Oriental and African Studies, from which he graduated in 1992. He then took up a post in Somalia, treating civilians in the war-torn, famine-ravaged country.
Colleagues at Dumfries and Galloway Royal Infirmary said: "Our sympathy goes out to those closest to him."
Lorry driver Neil Gaffney, 38, of New Abbey, near Dumfries, who knew Mr Dale when he lived in the nearby village of Beeswing, said: "He was fantastic company. I was shocked to hear what has happened to him."
He added: "Ken enjoyed the peace and quiet of the rural area and used to spend a lot of his time taking photographs in the countryside.
"He used to come to parties at my mother-in-law's and was always a great laugh."
Charles Schooling, Mr Dale's landlord until he left for Pakistan in February last year, said: "It's terrible that this should have happened to a man like Ken, who had dedicated his life to helping others.
"He was a very fine person who certainly did not deserve to be treated like this. It doesn't bear thinking about."
Mr Dale had hoped to marry his fiancee, Anne, later this year. The Australian had visited him at Beeswing in 2010.
Mr Schooling said he had recently redecorated the flat in Beeswing where Mr Dale was a tenant for two years.
"I was always hoping that one day he would return to live there," he said.
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