The family of a Canadian man executed by extremists in the Philippines on Monday says it agrees that a ransom should not have been paid for his release.
Robert Hall, a 66-year-old Calgary native, had been held hostage by Abu Sayyaf, an Islamist military group, since September.
He was beheaded this week after the deadline for the ransom payment demanded by his captors passed.
According to long-standing government policy, Canada does not pay ransoms to kidnappers because it would be akin to funding terrorism.
Hall’s death follows the killing in April of fellow Canadian John Ridsdel, 68, who was also snatched from a marina by Abu Sayyaf.
In the statement released Tuesday, the family says it agrees with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that money not be paid to captors who seek to undermine fundamental Canadian values.
The statement says every option to free him was considered, and efforts were “vast and exhaustive.”
Hall, who has two adult sons, was a welder by trade, an experienced pilot, an amateur actor and a former insurance salesman
After retiring, he was sailing the world with his Filipina girlfriend, Marites Flor, also kidnapped along with Hall, Ridsdel, and Norwegian Kjartan Sekkingstad.
The whereabouts of Flor and Sekkingstad remains unknown.
Abu Sayyaf is based in the southwestern part of the Philippines. It has been engaged in an insurgency for an independent province since 1991 and is responsible for a 2004 bombing that killed 116 people.
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