New Zealand court rejects appeal by Christchurch mosque shooter

CHRISTCHURCH — The white supremacist who shot to death 51 Muslims at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, lost his bid to overturn his convictions and sentence at the country’s Court of Appeal on Thursday. Brenton Tarrant is serving a life sentence with no parole after admitting to the murders and trying to kill another 40 worshippers in the March 2019 attack. During a week-long hearing in February, Tarrant, now 35, argued he was incapable of making rational decisions at the time of his plea because of “torturous and inhumane” conditions in prison. He also launched an appeal against his sentence. New Zealand’s Court of Appeal rejected his bid on Thursday, ruling that his arguments were “utterly devoid of merit”. The facts around Tarrant’s crimes are “beyond dispute”, the panel of three judges said in a unanimous decision. In his appeal, Tarrant claimed he made the guilty pleas while he was “irrational” and under a poor mental state. The panel of three judges dismissed Tarrant’s claim that harsh prison conditions prompted his involuntarily admission to the terrorism, murder and attempted murder charges he faced. The judges found his claims inconsistent and not supported by other witnesses, concluding that he was not “coerced or pressured in any way” to plead guilty. “He has not identified any arguable defence, or indeed any defence known to the law. We have also rejected his claim that his guilty pleas were the product of him having an irrational state of mind induced by his prison conditions,” they said on Thursday. The massacre at Al Noor mosque and Linwood Islamic Centre, parts of which were live-streamed, led to stricter gun laws in New Zealand. Aya al-Umari, who lost her older brother Hussein in the attack, said she was “pleased and relieved” with the court’s decision, “and to see justice is being served again”. “I was confident that there were no solid grounds for the appeal, and the decision today confirms that,” al-Umari told the BBC. Within a month of the shootings, the country’s parliament had voted overwhelmingly to ban military-style semi-automatic weapons as well as parts that could be used to build prohibited firearms. The government also offered to compensate owners of newly-illegal weapons in a buy-back scheme. Tarrant was born in New South Wales, Australia, but moved to New Zealand in 2017 – prosecutors said that was when he started planning his attacks against the Muslim community. He was active on fringe online forums and shortly before the attack, he had posted a 74-page “manifesto” outlining his racist views. — Agencies