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This file image made from undated militant video, shows
Canadians Robert Hall, left, and John Ridsdel, right. With a black Islamic
State group-style flag as a backdrop, Abu Sayyaf fighters beheaded Canadian
hostage Hall on southern Jolo island on Monday, June 13, 2016, after a ransom
deadline passed.
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Relatives of a Canadian man beheaded by Islamic militants in
the Philippines said Tuesday that they agree with Canada’s policy of not paying
ransom for hostages.
Robert Hall had been held hostage by the militant Abu Sayyaf
group since September 2015. The deadline for a ransom payment passed Monday,
and Abu Sayyaf released a gruesome video of Hall’s beheading. It shows Hall in
an orange shirt kneeling in front of a black Islamic State-style flag in a
jungle area before he was killed. Officials in the Philippines have confirmed
his death.
Hall’s family said in a statement that every option to free
him was considered and efforts to that end were “vast and exhaustive.”
In the end, the family says it agrees with Prime Minister
Justin Trudeau’s directive that money not be paid to hostage takers who seek to
undermine fundamental Canadian values.
“Our family, even in our darkest hour, agrees wholeheartedly
with Canada’s policy of not paying ransom to those who would seek to undermine
the fundamental values with which my father lived his life,” the family
statement reads. “We stand with the ideals that built this country: strength of
character; resilience of spirit; and refusal to succumb to the demands of the
wretched, in order to satisfy the bloodlust of the weak.”
– Philippines Daily Inquirer/Asia News Network
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