WELLINGTON, Aug 28 (NNN-AGENCIES) — New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern welcomed the life sentence for the Christchurch mosque gunman on Thursday, saying he deserved a lifetime of “complete and utter silence”.
“The trauma of March 15 is not easily healed but today I hope is the last where we have any cause to hear or utter the name of the terrorist behind it,” said Ardern, who was widely praised for her response to the attacks last year that killed 51 Muslim worshippers.
“His deserves to be a lifetime of complete and utter silence.”
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 New Zealand Muslim community had still paid a terrible 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.
He had admitted 51 charges of murder, 40 of attempted murder and one of terrorism over the attacks, after reversing an initial not-guilty plea.
Tarrant accepted the sentence and waived his right to speak at the sentencing.
Before sentencing, Tarrant, a former gym instructor, had sacked his legal team and declared he would represent himself.
Instead, court-appointed lawyer Pip Hall made a brief one-line statement on his behalf before the judge delivered his sentence.
“Mr Tarrant does not oppose the application that he should be sentenced to life imprisonment without parole,” Hall said.
The atrocity shocked New Zealand and prompted Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to immediately tighten gun laws and pressure social media giants to curb online extremism. — NNN-AGENCIES
