‘Bumbling jihadi’ charged
A warrant to arrest the man called the ‘‘bumbling jihadi’’ – New Zealand-born man Mark Taylor – has been issued in the Wellington District Court.
A charge sheet under the name Muhammad Abdul Rahman Hamza Omar John Daniel was filed with a date showing he was due to appear before a registrar yesterday.
However, with no chance he was going to be in the country, a Wellington registrar has issued a warrant.
This means if he crosses the border he will be arrested. The charging document shows a Hamilton address and the charge is that between June 11, 2014, and April 24, 2015, at Raqqa in Syria he threatened to do grievous bodily harm to New Zealand police officers and soldiers. The charge is from the Crimes Act and carries a seven-year maximum jail term.
Detectives with the National Security Investigation Team have been building a case for at least seven months in anticipation of Taylor returning from Syria, where he joined Islamic State in 2014.
Taylor is being held by the Kurdish-led Syrian Defence Force in northern Syria but his continuing captivity was thrown into doubt after Turkey invaded.
Assisting police with their inquiry is the trail of evidence Taylor has left on social media and in public statements during five years living in Isis-controlled territory and his subsequent imprisonment.
In 2015, he earned the nickname the ‘‘bumbling jihadi’’ for accidentally revealing on Twitter the coordinates of Islamic State fighters.
Taylor is believed to have set up a Linkedin account in late 2015 and claimed to be teaching English to children in Isis-controlled Raqqa.
Since being locked up, Taylor has appealed to be allowed back to New Zealand.