Foreign Desk Report
CHRISTCHURCH: New Zealand mosque gunman Brenton Tarrant was sentenced to life in prison without parole Thursday for the massacre of 51 Muslim worshippers, with a judge calling him “wicked” and “inhuman”.
Judge Cameron Mander said that behind Tarrant’s “warped” ideology was a “base hatred” that led him to attack defenceless men, women and children last year in New Zealand’s worst terror attack. “It is incumbent on the court to respond in a way that decisively rejects such vicious malevolence,” Mander said as he announced a sentence unprecedented in New Zealand legal history.
The judge said Tarrant had failed in his aim of promoting right-wing extremism as he gunned down victims in cold blood but the NZ Muslim community had still paid a price.
“It was brutal and beyond callous. Your actions were inhuman,” the judge said.
Tarrant — a 29-year-old Australian white supremacist — sparked global revulsion on March 15, 2019 when he rampaged through two Christchurch mosques for 20 minutes during Friday prayers.
