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Home / Hawkes Bay Today

Linda Hall: No sympathy for 'Kiwi Jihadi'

By Linda Hall
Hawkes Bay Today·
5 Mar, 2019 08:00 PM3 mins to read

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Linda Hall is Assistant Editor, Hawke's Bay Today.

Linda Hall is Assistant Editor, Hawke's Bay Today.

I count myself as quite a forgiving person. I don't hold grudges and think people always deserve a second chance.

However, I can conjure up no sympathy at all for "Kiwi Jihadi" Mark Taylor. He deserves to stay exactly where he is at the moment — in a Kurdish prison.

He surrendered to local forces because apparently he was running low on basic resources and life was getting a bit too difficult for him while living with Islamic State (IS) extremists in Syria.

Read more: Linda Hall: Lot to be said for good old fashioned family fun
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Well tough luck. Taylor didn't make a stupid decision in the heat of the moment that he now regrets.

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No, he has been living with these IS extremists for five years.

He's reportedly burnt his New Zealand passport — what a shame. He will just have to stay where he is, won't he? He also posted a video urging IS supporters in New Zealand and Australia to commit terrorist acts.

That boils down to telling his mates to hurt you and me.

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He has apologised for making the video but sometimes apologies just don't cut the mustard and this is one of those times.

Also unbelievably he said he regrets not being able to afford a Yazidi slave. He said he was sorry he didn't have enough money to buy one of the thousands of woman and girls Isis took as sex slaves.

Instead of being able to afford the "$US4000 American to buy an older woman, at least past 50 years, and to buy a decent one at least $US10,000 or $20,000", he got stuck married to two Syrian women, neither of which worked out.

How I feel for those women.

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After statements like that he still thinks he should be allowed back in New Zealand.
Well I for one do not want this person anywhere near where my family live. Where would he go?

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, to her credit, has said there was little the Government could do for him.

I was worried because we can sometimes be a little on the soft side when it comes to criminals.

He is of course worst kind of criminal and if he does come back Ardern has said it is "likely he would be taken into custody under the Terrorism Suppression Act".

But for how long. He's still young. Eventually he would be back in someone's community, living next door to someone's family.

Living next door to someone's mother, daughter, sister — he obviously has no respect for women.

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Can he be rehabilitated? I don't know. I'd like to say yes but I'm just not convinced. The only reason he wants to come back to New Zealand is because things were getting a bit hard for him.

Boo hoo Taylor — go back to Syria.

Linda Hall is assistant editor of Hawke's Bay Today.

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