The Australian white supremacist who murdered 51 Muslim worshippers at two mosques in Christchurch in 2019 has appealed against his convictions and sentence of life in prison without parole.
Brenton Tarrant pleaded guilty in March 2020 to 51 counts of murder, 40 counts of attempted murder and a terrorism charge. His change of plea averted the need for a trial that officials feared he would use to spread his extremist views.
Now aged 32, Tarrant in August 2020 became the first person in New Zealand under current laws to be sentenced to life in prison without the chance of ever walking free.
New Zealand’s court of appeal confirmed to the Guardian on Tuesday that Tarrant had filed an appeal for both his convictions and his sentence. The court will first consider whether the appeal can proceed because it was filed outside the legislated time frame to do so.
The grounds for appeal are not known, and a hearing date has not been set. Tarrant’s lawyer has been approached for comment.
The Australian moved to New Zealand in 2017 with a view to carrying out a white supremacist attack. He planned the mass shooting for months, conducted reconnaissance at the mosques, distributed a manifesto expressing his racist views before he opened fire, and live-streamed part of the assault on Facebook.
He initially said he would defend the charges he faced but changed his plea on all counts to guilty a year after the attacks. He did not speak in court during the sentencing for his crimes in August 2020.
Temel Ataçocuğu, who survived being shot with nine bullets in the attack, said he was “just so disappointed” that Tarrant had appealed, and called for tighter restrictions on how those convicted of terrorist acts could use the justice system to communicate their views. “He’s trying to keep his name in the media and keep spreading his ideologies,” Ataçocuğu said. “I think he wants to upset people and doesn’t want to be forgotten in jail.”
Aya al-Umari, whose brother Hussein al-Umari was murdered at Masjid al-Noor, the first the terrorist struck, told the Guardian that she believed justice would take its course.
“All I want is to get answers for my brother and a system that prevents such attack from happening again,” she said.
An independent inquiry produced an 800-page report on the attacks in December 2020, concluding that the terror plot could not have been detected by New Zealand’s government agencies “except by chance”.
It detailed at length how Tarrant was radicalised online and legally amassed a cache of semi-automatic weapons before the shooting – prompting sweeping changes to New Zealand’s gun laws.
A coronial inquiry is currently under way into the 51 deaths with a public inquest due to begin next May. – Guardian