Australian white suprematist Brenton Harrison Tarrant was handed on Thursday a life sentence without parole for killing 51 people at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in March 2019.
The judge imposed the maximum available sentence on the 29-year-old gunman, the first time such sentence has been imposed in New Zealand.
“Your actions were inhuman,” Judge Cameron Mander told him. “You deliberately killed a 3-year-old infant as he clung to the leg of his father.”
The country’s prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, commented on the sentencing saying that that the trauma the terrorist had caused deserved ” a lifetime of complete and utter silence.”
“Nothing will take the pain away,” she said as she addressed the Muslim community, “but I hope you felt the arms of New Zealand around you through this whole process and I hope you continue to feel that through all the days that follow”.
Ninety survivors and victims’ relatives confronted the killer in court on Wednesday, who decided not to speak in his defence.
Survivor Mustafa Boztas, who returned from Turkey for the hearing, told the gunman he was “just an insignificant killer who’s lonely, scared and left behind to suffer for eternity.”
“You are not actually a human, not even an animal since animals are beneficial to the world”, he said.
Euronews