New Zealand’s Terrorist, mosque shooter harshest criminal sentence in New Zealand history

A New Zealand court today has convicted mass shooter Brenton Tarrant, who killed 51 Muslim worshipers at a mosque the previous year, to life in jail without the chance of parole, the first such ruling ever handed down in the New Zealand country.

The 29-year-old Australian had earlier confessed to some 92 charges – 51 for murder, 40 for the attempted murder and one linked to terrorism – after the 2019 shooting spree at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand.

At Tarrant’s sentencing on Thursday, High Court Judge Cameron Mander said the severity of his crimes justified the harsh penalty.

“Your crimes… are so wicked that even if you are detained until you die it will not exhaust the requirements of punishment and denunciation,” the judge said while sentencing.

“As far as I can discern, you are empty of any empathy for your victims.”

Though New Zealand no longer possesses a death sentence, and until Tarrant’s case no judge had yet punished a criminal to life time behind bars with no chance for parole, victims’ families urged the judge to issue the harshest punishment possible.

“He deserves not a life imprisonment term of 17, 25 or 30 years, but life imprisonment until his last gasp, his last breath,” Hamimah Tuyan told the court on Wednesday, whose husband Zekeriya succumbed to injuries after two months after the shooting.

New Zealand PM Jacinda Ardern released a statement following the judgement, saying Tarrant’s life sentence “gave me relief, to know that person will never see the light of day.”

“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,” the PM further said.

“His deserves to be a lifetime of complete and utter silence.”

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