L'otage

James Richard Cross celebrates his 80th birthday with his family and friends at his home in Sussex, England. He is reminded of a painful event from his past. In October 1970, when he was the British attaché for Canada, Cross was kidnapped by the FLQ, a Quebec radical group, and held as a hostage for 60 days.

The ex-diplomat remembers the conditions of his confinement and the anguish he felt when he learned he was declared dead by the media after the body of Quebec minister Pierre Laporte was found, who had been kidnapped and murdered by another cell of the FLQ. Cross’s wife Barbara and his daughter Susan also tell their stories and memories, as does Jacques Lanctôt, the leader of Cross’s kidnappers.