| Eight sentences of the two-page article, in accordance with current Fair Use rules. |
After four years in prison for violently resisting arrest, with eleven more to go on his sentence, Dutch terrorist Jason (Jamal) Walters, aka Abu Mujahied Amriki, said in an open letter that he has renounced Islamic radicalism.
"The image that the world only exists of believers and infidels, in which the latter are motivated only to destroy the former, is a childish and coarse simplification of reality," Walters said.
-- Jason Walters |
"The ideals that I once honored have been lost and I have come to realize that they are morally bankrupt," Walters said in what he called a "review document" written from the maximum-security prison in Vught. It was published recently in the Dutch daily De Volkskrant.
Walters is a leading member of the jihadist Hofstadgroep, made up of Islamists primarily of Moroccan origin. The group was led by Mohammed Bouyeri, who is serving a life sentence for killing controversial Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh in 2004.
In 2004 Walters resisted arrest for plotting to kill Geert Wilders and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, causing a 14-hour siege during which he threw a grenade at police, injuring four policemen.
"It's better to burn out than it is to rust" could be the summary of Mr. Walters' brief rise and fall as a follower of the hard jihad of the sword. The son of an African-American soldier father and a Dutch mother, Walters and his younger brother followed their father into Islam as teenagers, then quickly found their way to jihad. Before he was twenty our boy had made his way to Pakistan to train with jihadi groups, and a year later he was arrested after that violent siege mentioned above. He was convicted, although the Dutch legal system is revisiting the concept of a terror group. Having had four years to reflect in prison, he's realized that violent jihad corrupts by harming innocent Muslims and turning them against Islamic rule, so he's given it up. As the article points out, he doesn't regret the goal of the Caliphate, just as others who have come to abjure violent jihad say that Al Qaeda, etc. erred when they brought destruction upon the Ummah by attacking an overwhelming opponent.
Nb: this comment is based on a number of articles read at Rantburg and elsewhere. |
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