New Zealand mosque shooter seeks to discard his guilty pleas, saying prison made him irrational
WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — The man who killed 51 Muslim worshipers at two mosques in New Zealand’s deadliest mass shooting told an appeals court Monday that he felt compelled to plead guilty to the crimes out of “irrationality” due to harsh prison conditions. Asked for the guilty plea to be dismissed.
A three-judge panel at the Wellington Court of Appeal will hear five days of evidence into Brenton Tarrant’s claim that he is unfit to plead to terrorism, murder and attempted murder charges. 2019 attack In the city of Christchurch. If his bid is successful, his case will return to court for a hearing, but this was averted when he admitted the hateful attack in March 2020.
He also tries to object life sentence without chance of paroleThis has never been implemented in New Zealand before. Tarrant’s testimony about his mental state when he pleaded guilty Monday was the first time he spoke meaningfully in a public setting since livestreaming the 2019 massacre on Facebook.
The shooter said he was experiencing “nervous exhaustion”
A self-described white supremacist, an Australian man immigrated to New Zealand with the aim of carrying out his elaborately planned massacre. He amassed a cache of semi-automatic weapons, took steps to avoid detection and wrote a lengthy manifesto before traveling from Dunedin to Christchurch and opening fire at two mosques in March 2019.
In addition to the 51 people who died, dozens of people were seriously injured, the youngest of whom was a 3-year-old child. The attack was considered one of New Zealand’s darkest days, and institutions attempted to prevent the spread of Tarrant’s message through legal injunctions and bans on possession of the manifesto or video of the attack.
Monday’s hearing took place under tight security restrictions that severely limited who could see Tarrant’s evidence, including some reporters and those injured or mourned in the massacre. Tarrant, who wore a white button-up shirt and black-rimmed glasses and had a shaved head, spoke via video from the white-walled room of the prison.
Responding to questions from the Crown attorney and lawyers representing him, Tarrant, 35, said his mental health had deteriorated due to his solitary confinement and limited reading material or contact with other inmates.
When he pleaded guilty, Tarrant said he was experiencing “nervous exhaustion”, uncertainty about his identity and beliefs, and confessed to the crimes several months before the trial was due to begin “because there was little I could do”.
Crown lawyers say there is no evidence of serious mental illness
Crown attorney Barnaby Hawes suggested to Tarrant during questioning that the Australian man had other options. Hawes said he could ask for the hearing date to be postponed on mental health grounds, or he could go to the hearing and defend himself.
Hawes also told Tarrant that there was little evidence that he was suffering from a serious mental crisis in the documentation of his behavior by mental health professionals and prison staff. Tarrant claimed that his symptoms of mental illness were not recorded and that he sometimes tried to mask them.
“I was doing absolutely everything possible to appear confident, self-assured and mentally healthy,” he told the court. He added that Tarrant’s behavior “reflects the political movement of which I am a part.” “So I always wanted to put on the best possible front.”
He acknowledged that he had access to legal advice throughout the court process. Tarrant’s current lawyers were ordered to remain anonymous because they feared representing him would make them unsafe.
The result of the objection will be announced later.
In New Zealand, proposals to appeal convictions or sentences must be made within 20 working days. Tarrant was nearly two years late filing his appeal, filing documents with the court in September 2022.
He told the court on Monday that his proposal was delayed because he did not have access to the information necessary to do so.
The trial is expected to continue for the rest of the week, but the judges are expected to announce their decision at a later date. If Tarrant’s attempt to dismiss the guilty plea is rejected, the next hearing will focus on Tarrant’s bid to appeal his sentence.
