Christchurch Mosque Shooter Sentenced To Life Imprisonment Without Parole by New Zealand High Court.

by Rianna Lobo

27th August 2020

Shooter Brenton Tarrant at his hearing. (Source: BBC.com)

Christchurch mosque shooter and white supremacist Brenton Tarrant was sentenced to life imprisonment with no parole on 25th August at the High Court in Christchurch. Tarrant was responsible for the deaths of 51 Muslims and the injuries of many more.

High Court judge Cameron Mander said that Tarrant shows no remorse or regret regarding his crimes and that life imprisonment would not be enough for him to atone. While delivering the sentence, the judge exclaimed that the perpetrator’s crimes are so wicked that even his detention until death will not be enough to exhaust the proper requirements of punishment and denunciation that he really deserves. Brenton Tarrant hailing from New Zealand is a 29-year old Australian who confessed to the 51 charges of murder, 40 counts of attempted murder and one charge of committing a terrorist act that was pressed on him. Tarrant was wearing a headcam while he went on this rampage in order to capture everything via the headcam in order to live-stream it on Facebook which he was successful in doing.

More than 90 survivors and families of the victims have been demanding life imprisonment without parole for the shooter since the attack. At the hearing on Wednesday, they made emotionally charged statements, saying that justice had been served. Tarrant, who represented himself, was silent during the hearing and did not oppose the prosecution’s application for a life without parole sentence. Tarrant had previously stated in a pre sentence report that in no way he was a racist or xenophobic, as the state prosecutor Mark Zarifeh had told that “Mr Tarrant was motivated by racist and xenophobic ideology with a desire to create terror within the Muslim community and beyond”.

The attack had led to a campaign against hate content online and a ban on firearms in New Zealand which was led by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. She said she was also relieved that this person wouldn’t see the light of day. Prosecutors had said that Tarrant had about 7000 rounds of ammunition ready for the attacks, which were originally planned to be orchestrated at 3 different mosques. They also said that he has planned these attacks to cause maximum carnage. He killed 44 people at the Al Noor mosque and then attacked a second mosque, killing 7 people.

Regardless of the statement, the judge observed that Tarrant did not show any signs of remorse or empathy for his victims and hoped that the new reforms in government policy would bring about real changes.

Sources: Reuters, NDTV.

Edited by Hrishit Roy.