'Bumbling Jihadi' Mark John Taylor charged under Terrorism Suppression Act

A terrorism charge has been laid against a New Zealander who allegedly travelled overseas to join Islamic State a decade ago. 

Mark John Taylor, also known as Mohammed Daniel, was charged under the Terrorism Suppression Act this morning. 

 Charging documents filed in the Wellington District Court state he’s being accused of participating in a group in Syria, namely the Islamic State and the Levant (ISIL) between 29 November 2014 and 24 December 2018. 

It said he’s believed to have joined the groups “for the purpose of enhancing the ability of ISIL to carry out or participate in one or more terrorist acts intended to cause the death or injury to one or more persons, in one or more countries.  

It said it was for the purpose of advancing an ideological, political or religious cause with the intention of inducing terror in a civilian population, knowing or being reckless whether ISIL is a designated terrorist identify.” 

He faces a maximum penalty of 14 years imprisonment. 

For some more insight into this case, we’re joined now on The Front Page by Massey University Emeritus Professor Paul Spoonley.  

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Gilda. I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is a bonus episode
of The front Page, a daily podcast presented by the
New Zealand Herald. A terrorism charge has been laid against
a New Zealander who allegedly traveled overseas to join Islamic
State a decade ago. Mark John Taylor, also known as

(00:28):
Muhammad Daniel, was charged under the Terrorism Suppression Act this morning.
Charging Documents filed in the Wellington District Court state he's
being accused of participating in a group in Syria, namely
the Islamic State and the Levant or Isle, between November
twenty ninth, twenty fourteen and December twenty fourth, twenty eighteen.

(00:50):
It said he's believed to have joined the groups for
the purpose of enhancing the ability of them to carry
out or participate in one or more tear terrorist acts
intended to cause the death or injury to one or
more persons in one or more countries. It said it
was for the purpose of advancing an ideological, political, or

(01:12):
religious cause with the intention of inducing terror in a
civilian population, knowing or being reckless. Whether isol is a
designated terrorist identity. He faces a maximum penalty of fourteen
years in prison. Police Director of National Security, Detective Superintendent
Sean Hanson has confirmed police think he still overseas. The

(01:36):
charge relates to alleged participation in the Islamic State in
Iraq and the levant or isol to enhance their ability
to carry out or participate in terrorist acts in one
or more countries. He said. The police investigation, which spans
more than ten years, is continuing and police recently received
Crown law approval to prosecute. He remains a New Zealand

(01:58):
citizen and should he return to New Zealand, Hanson said
he will be brought to justice for his alleged involvement
with a designated terrorist organization. Police are not seeking extradition, however,
in the event he wishes to return to New Zealand,
this will provide an appropriate mechanism to manage his return.

(02:18):
It's understood Taylor was captured by Kurdish forces in northern
Syria in late twenty eighteen early twenty nineteen. In twenty twenty,
a Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade spokesperson told me
the circumstances of foreign terrorist fighters detained in Syria are
extremely complex, as New Zealand does not have a diplomatic

(02:39):
presence in Syria. The ability of the government to assist
citizens is severely limited and it's very difficult to get
clear information, they said.

Speaker 2 (02:49):
Within the past couple of hours. A New Zealander has
been named as a global terrorist by the United States
State Department. His name is Mark John Taylor, and he's
been fighting with ISIS and Syria since twenty fourteen. He's
also used social media to encourage terror attacks here and
in Australia.

Speaker 1 (03:10):
So who is Mark John Taylor. Taylor was raised in
Hamilton and has also been known as Mohammad Daniel and
Abu Abdul Rahman. Taylor traveled from New Zealand to Syria
in twenty fourteen to join Islamic State. The same year,
he posted a photo online of his burnt New Zealand

(03:30):
passport and declared he was on a one way trip
with no intention of returning home. Earlier, in two thousand
and nine, he had tried to gain access to an
al Qaeda stronghold close to the Afghanistan border, but was
arrested by Pakistan authorities. The New Zealand government subsequently subjected
him to travel restrictions. He left New Zealand again in

(03:52):
twenty twelve, and worked in Indonesia for two years as
an English teacher before entering Syria across the two Turkish
border as a soldier for Allah. In twenty fifteen, the
US government declared Taylor a global terrorist after he encouraged
attacks in Australia and New Zealand and appeared in an

(04:13):
Islamic state propaganda video. He earned the moniker of the
bumbling Jihadi after mistakenly revealing the location of ISIS fighters
on Twitter after failing to turn off a tracking function
on his phone. He deleted forty five posts on the
social media website after they apparently showed he was with

(04:33):
ISIS in Kafar Roma. He apparently spent fifty days in
an Islamic state prison over that incident. Earlier, and while
in war ravaged Aleppo, Taylor claimed to have been in
touch with the New Zealand government in a bid to
get a new passport after burning his last one. In
twenty nineteen, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation or ABC, reported that

(04:55):
he had been captured and imprisoned by Kurdish forces. He
told the ABC he had surrendered to the forces because
life had become unbearable and that he was in a pickle.
There was no food, no money, basic services were pretty
much collapsed, he said. Taylor claimed he lived with the
extremist group for five years as a guard, not a fighter,

(05:18):
and joining the group wasn't what he had anticipated. He
told the ABC that during his time with the Islamic State,
he witnessed a number of beheadings and executions. They had
a lady. They took her out of a truck and
shot her in the back of the head. There was
a big crowd gathering around. I asked, what's going on,
but no one answered, he said. The other time, I

(05:39):
was living in SUSA and they had someone crucified with
a sign around his neck, but I didn't know what
it read. I couldn't understand the Arabic. He also complained
to the ABC about not being able to afford a
female slave, saying it cost about four thousand dollars US
to buy an older woman, and to buy a decent one,

(06:00):
he said, you'd need at least ten or twenty thousand
dollars US. So when Taylor re emerged in twenty nineteen
after speaking to the ABC from behind bars, then Prime
Minister Desindra A Durn said he was our problem and
we have to accept that. Given Taylor only has New
Zealand citizenship, revoking it would make him stateless. While a

(06:22):
Durn said the government would make no effort to get
him back to New Zealand, she said if he were
to find his way to Turkey and to seek a
temporary travel document, New Zealand cannot make him someone else's problem.
In twenty nineteen, the Terrorism Suppression Control Order's Bill was
passed into law with the intention of keeping the New

(06:43):
Zealand public safe if a person involved in terrorism related
activities overseas returns to the country. Then Justice Minister Andrew
Little said of that legislation that it was designed to
prevent terrorism and support deradicalization in a way that is
concealed distant with New Zealand's human rights laws. For some

(07:03):
more insight into this case, we're joined now on the
front page by Massi University Distinguished Professor Paul spoon Leaf. Paul,
how unprecedented are these charges?

Speaker 3 (07:20):
Very I'm not aware that anybody has been charged while
they're overseas. I mean, we clearly have a series of
acts beginning in two thousand and two and updated in
twenty nineteen and then in twenty twenty two, which identify
who would be regarded as a terrorist threat in some
of the steps that ought to be taken. But this

(07:41):
is somebody who's still overseas and appears might still be
in Assyrian prison, although that's going to be an interesting question.
And I think it probably anticipates that person traveling on
a New Zealand passport or coming back to New Zealand.
So I think it's a peremptory move, but it's is
a very unusual.

Speaker 1 (07:58):
Move dead police. I have to lay these charges just
in case he did make it back to New Zealand,
say on travel documents or something, because he did burn
his passport back in twenty fourteen apparently and posted photos
online of his burnt New Zealand passport. So if he
has made his way to say the Turkish embassy and
gotten travel documents to return to New Zealand, is this

(08:21):
just another mechanism that police can use to kind of
catch him at the border.

Speaker 3 (08:25):
Yes. There was a discussion at the time when the
Prime Minister Descender Durnwade in and said, even if he
has burned his passport, he is still a New Zealand citizen,
so we need to give him the rights of that citizenship. However,
we've also in parallel got obligations under the Terrorism Suppression Act.
So I think it's a move to try and make

(08:49):
sure that if he comes back to New Zealand, under
this Act you can actually restrict movements and rights, and
you can do it for two year period, and I
think it's designed to do that. Now, what's interesting about
this is that under the Act you apply to the
Police Commissioner, he makes a ruling and then of course
the courts can do can lay the charges. Normally, name

(09:12):
is automatically suppressed and it can only be lifted by
the courts, and this is clearly what's happened. So we've
got a list of the organizations that are deemed to
be terrorists. Islamic State is one of those, and earlier
this year it was that designation of it being a
terrorist organization was renewed. On the list of designated terrorist organizations.

(09:33):
We have one individual, which is the christ shooter. So
it's not only unusual in terms of the person being
overseas and anticipating perhaps a return or perhaps accessing in
his own passport. But it's also that we now have
an identified person who has now had charges laid against
them as an.

Speaker 1 (09:50):
Individual in terms of so he went over apparently to
Syria in twenty fourteen. It seems to me like the
two thousands and twenty tens especially, there were a lot
of not only New Zealand citizens, but citizens from all
over the world traveling to the likes of Syria because
they had been radicalized online. I mean, how does that happen.

Speaker 3 (10:14):
It's an interesting dynamic because you know, we've got to
struggle with this as a society because it's not simply
those who have been recruited to Islamic and terrorist organizations,
but it's also of caused people such as the Christian shooter,
who were also recruited and radicalized online. And it's very
much a function of our contemporary online world and ability

(10:38):
to access without controls, really access material which enables you
to be convinced that something is wrong and that you
need to do something. Now, most people might be convinced,
but then don't do it. So this person Taylor who
is being charged, and of course the Christian shooter, what's

(11:01):
quite unusual there is that they not simply are convinced
of a particular set of views, are to draw their
sympathy to a particular terrorist organization, but also then to
act those out. And that's the threat to societies like
our own, that it's not simply that you are a
keyboard warrior in a particular echo change of going down

(11:21):
a particular rabbit hole and being convinced of a particular
point of view. It's that you will do something about it.
So to actually go as this person did to the
Middle East and to participate is a very significant move
or act, and we definitely need to understand why individuals
would do that.

Speaker 1 (11:40):
And in terms of people becoming radicalized online, what kind
of mechanisms do we have in place to kind of
stop that from happening. I suppose they end up on
some kind of list.

Speaker 3 (11:51):
Yes, we've we've got a list of organizations that are
deemed to be terrorists. So that's a start. As security
and intelligence services monitor individuals monitor activity, but of course
the sheer volume of activity is just extraordinary. And actually
you can have keywords that would trigger interest in the

(12:11):
particular exchange or a particular set of comments online, but
it is becoming increasingly difficult simply to track, monitor, understand
what's happening online. So we're increasingly reliant upon our partners,
and particularly our five Ice partners to give us information.

(12:33):
And of course, one of the interesting things about this
particular individual is that he's been deemed a global terrorist
by American agencies. So they actually moved in a way
earlier the way we did to be very clear about
the issues that this individual represents to us and to

(12:53):
other countries.

Speaker 1 (12:54):
Thanks for joining us, Paul.

Speaker 3 (12:55):
You're very welcome, Chelsea.

Speaker 1 (13:01):
That's it for this episode of the Front Page. You
can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage
at enzidherld dot co dot MZ. The Front Page is
produced by Ethan Sills and Richard Martin, who is also
a sound engineer. I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to The Front
Page on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts, and

(13:24):
tune in tomorrow for another look behind the headlines.