The white supremicist who gunned down Muslims at two Christchurch mosques last year could become the first person sentenced by a
New Zealand court to life imprisonment without parole. Sentencing for Brenton Tarrant began on Monday, at the Christchurch High Court where the
Australian, 29, pleaded guilty to 51 charges of murder, 40 charges of attempted murder, and one charge of terrorism. The minimum sentence for murder is life imprisonment with a non-parole period of 10 years. He stormed Christchurch’s Al Noor Mosque and Linwood Islamic Centre armed with semi-automatic rifles on 15 March last year, broadcasting his
shooting sprees live on
Social Media. Prior to the attacks, Tarrant circulated a now-banned manifesto outlining his motivation: to spark fear in non-European migrant communities. Before the hearings began, 48-year-old Taj Mohammed Kamran paced the sidewalk outside court aided by crutches. His right buttock carried shrapnel from the massacre at Al Noor Mosque, where a bullet hit him and another killed his best friend. A refugee wearing traditional Afghani robes, Mohammed said he felt proud to be a New Zealand citizen able to see justice served to the man who shot him. He said he didn’t get that opportunity when his siblings were killed by a
bomb in
Afghanistan.