The Enemy Within, by Maire Leadbeater is many things. It is:

• A family history
• A social history
• A history of the left-wing in Aotearoa
• A chilling reminder of the origin and continuation of the surveillance state in New Zealand, and
• A damn good read.

The book is a great example of citizen or activist authorship. The author, Maire Leadbeater, and her family are front and centre of the dark cloud of the surveillance state that has hung and still hangs over New Zealand’s “democracy”.

What better place to begin the book than the author noting that she had been spied on by the security services from the age of 10. What better place to begin than describing the role of the Locke family — Elsie, Jack, Maire, Keith and their siblings — have played in Aotearoa society over the last few decades.

And what a fitting way to end the book than with the final chapter entitled, “Person of Interest: Keith Locke”; Maire’s much-loved brother and our much-loved friend and comrade.

In between these pages is a treasure trove of commentary and stories of the development of the surveillance state in the settler colony of NZ and the impact that this has had on the lives of ordinary — no, extra-ordinary — people within this country.

The book could almost be described as a political romp from the settler colonisation of New Zealand through the growth of the workers movement and socialist and communist ideology from the late 1800s until today.

I have often deprecatingly called myself a mere footnote of history as that is all I seem to appear as in many books written about recent progressive history in New Zealand. But it was without false modesty that when Maire gave me a copy of the book a couple of weeks back, I immediately went to the index, looked up my name and found that this time I was a bit more than a footnote, but had a section of a chapter written on my interaction with the spooks.

But it was after reading this, dipping into a couple of other “person of interest” stories of people I knew such as Keith, Mike Treen, the Rosenbergs, Murray Horton and then starting the book again from the beginning did it become clear on what issues the state was paranoid about that led it to build an apparatus to spy on its own citizens.

These were issues of peace, anti-conscription, anti-nuclear, de-colonisation, unemployed workers and left trade unionism and socialist and communist thought. These are the issues that come up time and time again; essentially it was seditious or subversive to be part of any of these campaigns or ideologies.

Client state spying
The other common theme through the book is the role that the UK and more latterly the US has played in ensuring that their NZ client settler state plays by their rules, makes enemies of their enemies and spies on its own people for their “benefit”.

It was interesting to read how the “5 Eyes”, although not using that name, has been in operation as long as NZ has had a spying apparatus. In fact, the book shows that 3 of the 5 eyes forced NZ to establish its surveillance apparatus in the first place.

Maire, and her editor have arranged this book in a very reader friendly way. It is mostly chronological showing the rise of the surveillance state from the beginning of the 19th century, in dispersed with a series of vignettes of “Persons of Interest”.

Maire would probably acknowledge that this book could not have been written without the decision of the SIS to start releasing files (all beit they were heavily redacted with many missing parts) of many of us who have been spied on by the SIS over the years. So, on behalf of Maire, thank you SIS.

Maire has painstakingly gone through pages and pages of these primary source files and incorporated them into the historical narrative of the book showing what was happening in society while this surveillance was taking place.

I was especially delighted to read the history of the anti-war and conscientious objectors movement. Two years ago, almost to the day, we held the 50th anniversary of the Organisation to Halt Military Service (OHMS); an organisation that I founded and was under heavy surveillance in 1972.

We knew a bit about previous anti-conscription struggles but Maire has provided much more context and information that we knew. It was good to read about people like John Charters, Ormand Burton and Archie Barrington as well more known resisters such as my great uncle Archibald Baxter.

Within living memory
Many of the events covered take place within my living memory. But it was wonderful to be reminded of some things I had forgotten about or to find some new gems of information about our past.

Stories around Bill Sutch, Shirley Smith, Ann and Wolfgang Rosenberg, Jack and Mary Woodward, Gerald O’Brien, Allan Brash (yes, Don’s dad), Cecil Holmes, Jack Lewin are documented as well as my contemporaries such as Don Carson, David Small, Aziz Choudry, Trevor Richards, Jane Kelsey, Nicky Hager, Owen Wilkes, Tame Iti in addition to Maire, Keith and Mike Treen.

The book finishes with a more recent history of NZ again aping the US’s so-called war on terror with the introduction of an anti and counter-terrorism mandate for the SIS and its sister agencies

The book traverses events such as the detention of Ahmed Zaoui, the raid on the Kim Dotcom mansion, the privatisation of spying to firms such as Thomson and Clark, the Urewera raids, “Hit and Run” in Afghanistan. Missing the cut was the recent police raid and removal of the computer of octogenarian, Peter Wilson for holding money earmarked for a development project in DPRK (North Korea).

When we come to the end of the book we are reminded of the horrific Christchurch mosque attack and massacre and prior to that of the bombing of Wellington Trades Hall and the Rainbow Warrior. Also, the failure of the SIS to discover Mossad agents operating in NZ on fake passports.

We cannot but ask the question of why multi-millions of dollars have been spent spying on, surveilling and monitoring peace activists, trade unionists, communists, Māori and more latterly Muslims, when the terrorism that NZ has faced has been that perpetrated on these people not by these people.

Maire notes in the book that the SIS budget for 2021 was around $100 million with around 400 FTEs employed. This does not include GCSB or other parts of the security apparatus.

Seeking subversives in wrong places
This level of money has been spent for well over 100 years looking for subversives and terrorists in the wrong place!

Finally, although dealing with the human cost of the surveillance state, the book touches on some of the lighter sides of the SIS spying. Those of us under surveillance in the 1970s and 1980s remember the amateurish phone tapping that went on at that time.

Also, the men in cars with cameras sitting outside our flats for days on end. Not in the book, but I have one memory of such a man with a camera in a car outside our flat in Wallace Street, Wellington.

After a few days some of my flatmates took pity on him and made him a batch of scones which they passed through the window of his car. He stayed for a bit longer that day but we never saw him or an alternate again.

Another issue the book picks up is the obsession that the SIS and its foreign counterparts had with counting communists in NZ. I remember that the CIA used to put out a Communist Yearbook that described and attempted to count how many members were in each of the communist parties all around the world.

In NZ, my party, the Workers Communist League, was smaller than the SUP, CPNZ and SAL, but one year near the end of our existence we were pleasantly surprised to see that the CIA had almost to a person, doubled our membership.

We could not work out why, until we realised that we all had code names as well as real names and we were getting more and more slack at using the correct one in the correct place. Anyone surveilling us, counting names, would have counted double the names that we had as members! We took the compliment.

Thank you, Maire, for this great book. Thank you and your family for your great contribution to Aotearoa society.

Hopefully the hardships and human cost that you have shown in this book will commit or recommit the rest of us to struggle for a decolonised and socialist Aotearoa within a peaceful and multi-polar world.

And as one of Jack Locke’s political guides said: “the road may be long and torturous, but the future is bright.”

Robert Reid has more than 40 years’ experience in trade unions and in community employment development in Aotearoa New Zealand. He is a former general secretary the president of FIRST Union. Much of his work has been with disadvantaged groups and this has included work with Māori, Pacific peoples and migrant communities. This was his address tonight for the launch of The Enemy Within: The Human Cost of State Surveillance in Aotearoa New Zealand, by Maire Leadbeater.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Former New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern has received one of the top accolades in today’s King’s Birthday Honours.

Ardern, who was prime minister from September 2017 until January this year, has been appointed a Dame Grand Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit.

She received the honour for services to the state.

Dame Jacinda declined to speak to RNZ about the award, but said in a statement she was “incredibly humbled”.

“I was in two minds about accepting this acknowledgement. So many of the things we went through as a nation over the last five years were about all of us rather than one individual,” Ardern said.

“But I have heard that said by so many Kiwis who I have encouraged to accept an honour over the years. And so for me this a way to say thank you — to my family, to my colleagues, and to the people who supported me to take on the most challenging and rewarding role of my life.”

Ardern’s official citation listed her leadership in response to the March 15 terrorist attacks and the covid-19 pandemic “positioning New Zealand as having one of the lowest covid-19 related death rates in the Western world.”

It noted she had been named top of Fortune Magazine‘s World’s 50 Greatest Leaders in 2021.

The citation also referenced Ardern’s focus on child poverty reduction and listed several policies her government introduced, including free school lunches in some schools.

Ardern was first elected in 2008 and became leader of the Labour Party in 2017. She became prime minister later that year.

Ardern announced her surprise resignation in January, saying she did not have “enough in the tank” to seek re-election.

Since leaving politics in April, Ardern has become New Zealand’s Special Envoy for the Christchurch Call and trustee of Prince William’s Earthshot Prize.

She has also been appointed two fellowships at Harvard University.

In a statement, Prime Minister Chris Hipkins said Ardern was recognised for leading New Zealand through some of the “greatest challenges” the country has faced in modern times.

“Leading New Zealand’s response to the 2019 terrorist attacks and to the covid-19 pandemic represented periods of intense challenge for our 40th prime minister, during which time I saw first hand that her commitment to New Zealand remained absolute.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

A human rights advocate appealed tonight for people in Aotearoa New Zealand to take personal responsibility in the fight against disinformation and to upskill their critical thinking skills.

Anjum Rahman, project lead of the Inclusive Aotearoa Collective Tāhono, said this meant taking responsibility for verifying the accuracy and source of information before passing it on and not fuelling hate and misunderstanding.

“Our democracy is very fragile,” she warned while delivering the annual David Wakim Memorial Lecture 2022 with the theme “Protecting Democracy in an Online World” at Parnell’s Jubilee Building.

She said communities were facing challenging and rapidly changing times with climate change, conflicts, inflation and the ongoing pandemic.

“If our democracy fails, all those other things fail as well,” she said.

“And for those of us who are more vulnerable it is a matter of life and death.

“Who most stand to lose their freedom if democracy fails? Who will be on the frontline to be exterminated?”

Rahman is co-chair of the Christchurch Call Advisory Network and a member of the Independent Advisory Committee of the Global Internet Forum for Countering Terrorism.

Argued strongly for diversity
As an advocate, she has argued strongly for many years in support of diversity and inclusion and in 2019 was made a member of the New Zealand Order of Merit.

On the third anniversary of the 15 March 2019 mosque massacre, she wrote in a column for The SpinOff that “we don’t need any more empty platitudes of sorrow . . . we need firm action and strong resolve. Across the board.”

The David Wakim Memorial Lecture 2022.                      Video: Billy Hania

The recommendations of the Royal Commission of Inquiry were more critical now than ever, and absolutely urgent, she wrote.

“In a world that feels chaotic, with war, rising prices, anger and hate expressed in protests across the world, our hearts seek a certainty that isn’t there.

“We need more urgency, and in many areas. I’m still disappointed with the Counter-Terrorism legislation passed last year, granting greater powers without evidence of any benefit. Hate speech legislation has been delayed, and we await a full review and overhaul of the national security system.”

A founding member of the Islamic Women’s Council of New Zealand, Rahman gave a wide-ranging address tonight on the online challenges for democracy, and answered a host of questions from the audience of about 100.

“I’m really worried about trolls,” said one. “They affect government, they influence voters, they have an impact on all sorts of decision making – what can be done about it?”

Rahman replied that it was very difficult question – “I wish there was a simple answer.”

Removing troll incentives
She said there needed to be more education and greater awareness of the activities of trolls and the sort of social media platforms they operated on.

One problem was that the more attention paid trolls got, it often meant the more money they were getting.

A challenge was to remove the incentive being given to them.

Award-winning cartoonist Malcolm Evans asked Rahman what her response was to the global situation “right now” with the invasion of Ukraine where people were “under intense pressure to vilify the Russians . . . treating them as ‘evil’.”

He added that “we live in a time that is probably the most dangerous that I have experienced in my lifetime … we are facing an Armageddon and I blame the media for that.

“It’s a disgrace.”

This led to a discussion by Pax Christi Aotearoa’s Janfrie Wakim about how Evans lost his job as a cartoonist on The New Zealand Herald in 2003 for “naming Israeli apartheid” over the repression of Palestinians to the loud applause of the audience.

‘Quality journalism’ paywalls
In a discussion about media, Rahman said she was disturbed by the failures of the media business model that meant increasingly “quality journalism” was being placed behind paywalls while the public that could not afford paywalls were being served “poor quality” information.

Introducing Anjum Rahman, Pax Christi’s Susan Healy said how “especially delighted the Wakim whanau were” that she had agreed to give the lecture.

David Wakim was the inaugural president of Pax Christi Aotearoa, an independent section of Pax Christi International, a Catholic organisation founded in France at the end of World War Two committed to working “to transform a world shaken by violence, terrorism, deepening inequalities, and global insecurity”.

Growing up in a Sydney Catholic family, Wakim was an advocate of interfaith dialogue. His travels in Muslim countries strengthened his links with the three faiths of Abraham – Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

He helped establish the Council of Christians and Muslims in Auckland, but was especially committed to Palestinian rights.

Wakim died in 2005 and the annual lecture honours his and Pax Christi’s mahi for Tiriti o Waitangi, interfaith dialogue, peace education, human rights and restorative justice.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Hate speech will become a criminal offence in New Zealand and anyone convicted could face harsher punishment under proposed legislative changes.

The government has today released for public consultation its long-awaited plan for the laws governing hate speech.

The plan is part of the government’s work to strengthen social cohesion, in response to the Royal Commission of inquiry into the Christchurch mosque terror attack.

Justice Minister Kris Faafoi said yesterday that abusive or threatening speech that incites can divide communities.

“Building social cohesion, inclusion and valuing diversity can also be a powerful means of countering the actions of those who seek to spread or entrench discrimination and hatred,” he said.

Protecting free speech and protecting people from hate speech would require careful consideration and a wide range of input, Faafoi said.

That would mean anyone who “intentionally stirs up, maintains or normalises hatred against a protected group” by being “threatening, abusive or insulting, including by inciting violence” would break the law.

The punishment for hate speech offences could also increase — from up to three months’ imprisonment or a fine of up to $7000, to up to three years’ imprisonment or a fine of up to $50,000.

The groups protected from hate speech could also grow – the government is considering changing the language and widening the incitement provisions in the Human Rights Act.

It has not yet decided which groups will be added. That is expected to happen following public consultation.

It is currently only an offence to use speech that will “excite hostility” or “bring into contempt” a person or group on the grounds of their colour, race or ethnicity. Gender identity, sexual orientation, religion or disability are not protected grounds.

The government is proposing several changes to the civil provision of the Human Rights Act, including making it illegal to incite others to discriminate against a protected group.

Protection from discrimination
It also wants to amend the Human Rights Act to ensure trans, gender-diverse and intersex people are protected from discrimination.

The proposed changes were recommended by the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Christchurch terror attack on 15 March 2019, which found hate crime and hate speech were not adequately dealt with.

“The current laws do not appropriately recognise the culpability of hate-motivated offending, nor do they provide a workable mechanism to deal with hate speech.”

The Ministry of Social Development will simultaneously consult with the public about what can be done to make New Zealand more socially cohesive.

Associate Minister for Social Development and Employment Priyanca Radhakrishnan, who is leading the social cohesion programme, told a media conference today the government wanted to build from existing Māori-Crown values.

“We are not starting from scratch,” she said. “We are generally regarded as a country with a high level of social cohesion and we’ve seen that as our team of 5 million has largely come together to rally around both in the aftermath of March 15 and also during the covid-19 lockdown.”

However, she said there were underlying vulnerabilities that New Zealand needed to address as the country grew in diversity and that this effort would be grounded in the values of the Treaty of Waitangi and the Māori-Crown relationship.

Ethnic programme
She said the government had accepted in principle all 44 recommendations of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Christchurch mosque attacks and had made progress on implementing those. Subsequent hui with ethnic groups had fed into the government’s response, she added.

“We’ve set up an ethnic communities graduate programme to provide a pathway into the public service for skilled graduates from ethic communities and also as one way to inject that broader cultural competence into government agencies, including the intelligence agencies.

“And the new Ministry for Ethnic Communities will come into effect next week and will take the place of the Office for Ethnic Communities.”

Radhakrishnan said the programme had a broader reach than ethnicity and that others who feel marginalised were being included.

She said the government wanted input from the public on how the programme can be forwarded.

Public submissions open today and close on August 6. The government’s discussion document includes steps on how to submissions.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

It was announced yesterday that Australian actress Rose Byrne will star as New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in an upcoming movie about the response to the Christchurch mosque terror attacks of 15 March 2019, titled They Are Us.

The movie will be directed by New Zealand’s Andrew Niccol. The movie’s focus is apparently going to be on the positive impact of a strong leader in the wake of tragedy.

Let’s take a moment to unpack that oversized baggage of white nonsense.

To be clear, this is the peak Karen of film announcements.

We are barely over two years on from one of the deadliest mass shootings in modern history.

The 51 people who were killed and the 40 who were wounded were specifically targeted for their Muslim faith. Those families are still traumatised and recovering from injuries, mourning and missing their loved ones.

They are still painfully experiencing firsts without their loved ones: first day of school, first grandchild being born, first jobs, university graduations and so much more. Their wounds have barely had time to scab over.

Witnesses fighting for ACC support
Uninjured witnesses to the horrific shootings are still fighting for support from the ACC for their mental injuries.

A survivor of the attacks, whose own father was killed that day, reported as recently as Friday that he encountered racist abuse outside his workplace, with no bystander intervention to help.

The Christchurch mosque attacks destroyed the lives of entire families and confirmed the worst fears of the Muslim community in New Zealand: that we aren’t safe anywhere. Not here. And certainly not if we’re Rohingya, not if we’re Uyghur, not if we’re Palestinian, not if we’re in our places of worship or even just crossing the street.

Somebody explain to 9-year-old Fayez Afzaal how to feel any other way as he recovers in a hospital in Ontario, the sole surviving member of his family after his parents, sister and grandmother were murdered by yet another white supremacist terrorist with Islamophobic views.

This attack in Canada happened just this week. You probably didn’t hear about it. Because white women like Rose Byrne and Jacinda Ardern will dominate the headlines while our communities are suffering.

This movie purports to centre a white woman character and her role in the aftermath of a heinous tragedy instead of focusing on the stories of the victims and survivors. It’s being directed by a white man. Hollywood will make money off this. Rose Byrne will be paid a pretty penny.

Remember that there were people in that mosque who literally put their bodies in the firing line and died to protect others, but apparently it’s the white saviour’s story that’s worth telling instead.

Where is the Muslim community?
Where is the Muslim community that was most impacted in this?

And I am not mollified by some “consultation with several members of the mosque”. I’m not naïve enough to believe the scope or depth of that consultation process would have been anywhere near adequate.

How is it okay for others to profit off our pain? How is it okay for Muslims to be de-centred from a story about their suffering? How can we celebrate this tragedy as something that was ultimately a triumph because someone got a pretty photo of Ardern in a hijab and it inspired some graffiti art and a light show in Dubai?

The banning of assault weapons, while important, did nothing to address the core issues of Islamophobia and racism festering in our societies under a thin façade of tolerance.

Similarly, this movie will achieve nothing for the community that was attacked either. It’s exploitative. It’s in bad taste.

USC Annenberg recently published a study on Muslim representation in popular film. It found that in popular films between 2017 – 2019, 181 of 200 films had no Muslim characters at all. Of the nearly 9000 characters in these films, only 1.6 percent of the speaking roles were Muslims.

Not only are we grossly under-represented, but when we’re represented at all it’s either as the victims or perpetrators of violence. And Muslim women are all but invisible on screen. The incredibly diverse ethnic backgrounds of Muslims are also erased in favour of the stereotypical portrayal of a Muslim as being either Middle Eastern or North African.

The film will focus the week following the 15 March Christchurch mosque attacks with Australian actrss Rose Byrne set to play New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, according to US media. Photo: RNZ / AFP

Can we have any confidence?
Given that, how can we have any confidence of this story being told with any sensitivity, nuance or even truthfulness?

If the Christchurch attacks are the subject of a movie, how can we be certain the violence won’t be glorified? That it won’t give hope to would-be attackers that their hateful actions would bring them the notoriety they seek?

That’s not to say we shouldn’t talk about the attacks, but there are at least 91 people I can think of who I would rather see as the subject of any such movie rather than our Prime Minister. Those 91 people and their families are mostly immigrants and refugees, of all ages, racial backgrounds, genders, working across so many industries. I promise you that any one of their stories would be more interesting, and worthy, of immortalising on film.

But Muslims also don’t want to be depicted only as the victims or aggressors of violence. Believe it or not, most of us can get through our entire lives without having thrown, or being on the receiving end, of a punch. We exist outside this context of tragedy too.

However, no one wants to know us on our terms. “They are us” plays nicely in a soft liberal speech, works well as a caption. What does it mean, in practical terms, if we can’t even be seen as the heroes of our own stories.

Saziah Bashir is a freelance journalist commenting on issues of social justice, race and gender. She completed an LLB, BCom and LLM from the University of Auckland. This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

• Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s office clarified that neither she nor the government have any involvement in the film.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

It took seven months for the New Zealand police to set up their first team for scanning the internet after the mosque attacks – but it was almost immediately in danger of being shut down.

An internal report released under the Official Information Act (OIA) said this was despite the team already proving its worth “many times over” in countering violent extremists.

The unit still does not have dedicated funding, despite a warning last July it risked being “turned off”.

This is revealed in 170 pages of OIA documents charting police intelligence shortcomings over the last decade, from pre-2011 extending through to mid-2020, and their attempts to overhaul the national system since 2018.

These show police had no dedicated team before 2019 to scan the internet for threats – what is called an OSINT team, for “Open Source Intelligence”.

“The OSINT team was stood up quickly last year with seconded staff to ensure… [an] appropriate emphasis on this new capability,” an internal report from July 2020 said.

In fact, police began the planning at the end of 2018, then “accelerated” it after the attacks, but it took till late October for the team to start, and training began in November 2019, a police statement to RNZ last week said.

This was all well after a January 2018 official assessment of the domestic terrorism threatscap said: “Open source reporting indicates the popularity of far right ideology has risen in the West since the early 2000s”.

When the police OSINT unit was finally set up, there was no guarantee it would last.

“This team is not permanent,” the July 2020 report said.

“This has meant uncertainty for staff and our intelligence customers.”

‘Seriously compromises’
The team had no dedicated budget, and lacked trained staff.

It also was still looking for tools to “quickly capture and categorise online intelligence elements”.

“The lack of a strong OSINT capability seriously compromises our intelligence collection posture, especially in major events,” said the report last July.

This is the sort of scanning that can pick up threats on 4chan or other extremist sites.

Despite the shortcomings, the internet team’s worth had already been proven “many times over in recent months, particularly in the counterterrorism and Countering Violent Extremism space”, the report said.

Three people have faced extremist charges in the last year or so.

‘Turned off’
An April 2019 report said police would begin recruiting for OSINT analytics and other specialists in April-May 2019.

Police had lacked a tool to search the dark web – where the truly egregious chat and trades take place on the internet – so bought one.

But last July’s report said “currently we run the risk” of OSINT “being turned off unless there is a dedicated budget”.

In a statement on Friday, police told RNZ: “The OSINT team has been funded as part of the overall allocation for intelligence since it was established.

“Maintaining this capability is a NZ Police priority, and dedicated funding is being sought as part of next year’s internal funding allocation process (note, this is funding from within Police’s existing baseline).

“Additional supplementary funding was also received in the last financial year to support the work of OSINT.”

They had known they needed the team, they said.

“Prior to March 15, New Zealand Police used some OSINT tools to support open source research of publicly available information and had identified the requirement to develop a dedicated capability.

“The development of this capability was accelerated by the events of March 15.”

‘9/11 moment’
The OIA documents show the OSINT intelligence weakness was not an isolated example.

These warned police needed to avoid “a ‘9/11’ moment” – a situation where police obtain information about a threat but do not understand it due to a failure to analyse how the dots join up, as happened to CIA and FBI before the terror attacks on New York in 2001.

The solution was to have “a complete intelligence picture”.

But the July 2020 report then laid out very clearly how police did not have this:

“Recent operational examples conclude there is no current ability to access all information in a timely and accurate manner,” it said.

“Currently there is no tool that can search across police holdings [databases] when undertaking analysis of investigations.

“We are still depending on manual searches.”

‘Locked down or invisible’
“Sources are either locked down or invisible to analysts. Our intelligence picture is consequently incomplete.”

The 31-page, July 2020 report detailed the police’s ‘Transforming Intelligence’ programme, dubbed TI21, that was begun in December 2018 and meant to be complete by this December.

It indicated the right technology would not be in place – or in some cases even identified – for 6-18 months.

As things stood, “there are many single points of failure in our intelligence system”, the report said.

Threat information was broken up into silos, without a centralised document management system or powerful enough analytic and geospatial software to connect the threats.

A section of the 2020 report detailing problems within the police’s High-Risk Targeting Teams has been mostly blanked out.

The OIA documents describe what is and is not working, especially when it comes to national security and counterterrorism, but also around intelligence on gang and drug crime, family violence, combating child sex offending, and the like, at a point many months after both the mosque attacks and the beginning of the system overhaul.

The Royal Commission of Inquiry into the mosque attacks in late 2020 called police national security intelligence capabilities “degraded” – not just once but six times.

It showed weaknesses elsewhere when it came to OSINT: The Security Intelligence Service had just one fulltime officer doing Open Source Internet searching, and the Government Communications Security Bureau had few resources for this, too. It was not till June 2019 that the Government’s Counter-Terrorism Coordination Committee suggested “leveraging open-source intelligence capability”.

Police, unlike SIS, did not do an internal review of how they had performed in the lead-up to March 15.

They did get a review done of how they did 48 hours after the attacks, which praised their efforts.

Tools missing

Among the key systems police have been lacking are:

• A national security portal “to search across police holdings”
• A national security person-of-interest tool
• A child sex offender management tool
• Cybercrime reporting systems – a “strategic demand” that “police intelligence is unable to effectively report on it”

Police in a statement said they had now “achieved a number of milestones”.

Key among them was introducing a National Security Portal to manage persons of interest.

Also, they now had standardised ways of improving quality and a National Intelligence Operating Model to ensure a consistent approach.

“The OSINT team, a new case management tool and “refined intelligence support to major events… has increased the capability, capacity and resilience of Police Intelligence to reduce and respond to counter-terrorism risks”.

The “Transforming Intelligence” documents refer repeatedly to having three new Target Development Centres set up in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch.

However, this was jettisoned last year, while the overhaul did stick with introducing Precision Targeting Teams in August 2018, police said.

These teams aim to target “our most prolific offenders” early on “to reduce crimes such as burglary, robbery and other violent and high-volume offending”.

Pressure on
Police are plugging the holes in national intelligence while under pressure.

The volume of leads coming in had increased “considerably” since March 2019, the July 2020 report said.

“This has put increased strain on our people to manage cases of concern.”

The intelligence weaknesses have persisted under four police commissioners since the national intelligence system was set up in 2008.

Intelligence staff have been quitting at three times the average rate in the public sector, and the documents laid out urgent plans to improve career pathways and value the likes of field officers and collections staff more.

The July 2020 report said demand on workers at the Integrated Targeting and Operations Centre was “unsustainable”.

Deep-seated cultural problems across the police were recently uncovered by RNZ’s Ben Strang, whose reporting triggered an official investigation that found 40 percent of officers had been bullied or harassed.

The Transforming Intelligence 2021 programme covers 10 areas: Intelligence Operating Model, National Security, Open Source, Child Protection Offender Register, Critical Command Information, Collections, Intelligence Systems, Performance, Training and Intelligence Support to major events.

There is a stark contrast between how the police leadership described their intelligence systems, and what other documents state.

Timeline

2003

– The Government Audit Office underscores the importance of national security planning

– Police attempt to develop a national security plan deferred due to other priorities

2006

– Police appoint first national manager of intelligence – before this it was led at district level

2008

– New national intelligence model introduced, that lasts till 2019

2011

– March: Police national security intelligence review finds many gaps and recommends a slew of fixes

2014

– Police assess rightwing extremist threat nationally, the last time this happens before the end of 2018

2015

– Sept: Police review finds 2011’s shortcomings remain, recommends changes

– Police liaison officers begin work with SIS and GCSB

2018

– August: Precision Targeting Teams begin

– Nov/Dec: Police launch Transforming Intelligence overhaul, while praising the old model

2019

– March: Mosque terrorism attacks

– April: A report ramping up the intelligence overhaul celebrates the old model’s effectiveness

– Sept: Police approve high-level operating model for intelligence

– Oct: Police set up dedicated internet scanning team for first time

– Internet scanning team identifies counterterrorism threats

– Dec: Aim to set up professional development structure to reduce Intelligence staff attrition by 15 percent

2020

– National Intelligence Centre leadership team appointed

– Feb: Intelligence training plan in place; national workshops

– July: Stocktake of Intelligence overhaul finds many gaps

– Dec 2020-Dec 2021: Aim to identify new intelligence gathering and analysing tech, including a police-wide system

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The Christchurch mosque shooter has been designated as a “terrorist entity” by the New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.

The designation under New Zealand legislation freezes the assets of terrorist entities and makes it a criminal offence to participate in or support the activities of the designated terrorist entity.

Last Thursday, Australian Brenton Tarrant, 29, who carried out the mosque attacks on 15 March 2019, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of ever leaving jail.

He had earlier admitted 51 charges of murder, 40 of attempted murder and one charge of terrorism.

Jacinda Ardern said the designation was an “important demonstration of New Zealand’s condemnation of terrorism and violent extremism in all forms.

“This designation ensures the offender cannot be involved in the financing of terrorism in the future. We have an obligation to New Zealand and to the wider international community to prevent the financing of terrorist acts,” she said.

There are currently 20 terrorist entities designated under New Zealand law, including the mosque shooter, police said.

Under Section 22 of the Terrorism Suppression Act 2002, the prime minister may designate individuals or groups as terrorist entities, on advice from officials, police added.

Details of the designations process and the statements of case supporting designation of these entities can be found on the New Zealand Police website.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

In the middle of the convicted mosque attack terrorist’s sentencing in New Zealand’s High Court at Christchurch last week was language interpreter Dr Mustafa Derbashi helping survivors and families tell their stories.

His task was trying to help people to understand and to be understood.

“It was an honour … to be [offered] this role. It was a huge responsibility,” the Auckland University of Technology graduate said.

READ MORE: Selwyn Manning: The sentencing of a ‘human shell’ over NZ mosque atrocity

“It was an honour to get the letter … to be [offered] this role. It was a huge responsibility,” the Auckland University of Technology graduate said.

The sentence hearing lasted four days, starting on Monday, August 24, and was conducted under heightened security.

A large number of victims and their families attended with 98 people giving impact statements, with those who could not be in the room due to covid-19 restrictions watching a restricted livestream in additional courtrooms or overseas.

The terrorist, Brenton Tarrant, who represented himself after he pleaded guilty to murdering 51 people, attempted murder of 40 people, and engaging in a terrorist act, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of ever leaving jail – the harshest sentence ever handed down by a New Zealand court.

Police and health settings
Dr Derbashi completed a Graduate Certificate in Arts (Interpreting) at the Auckland University of Technology in 2018, opening the opportunity for him to be a qualified interpreter in courts and tribunals, with the police and in health settings.

“I’ve worked in courts over the past few years and I’ve seen difficult situations … you need to be of your full consciousness,” he says.

Last week’s hearing was unprecedented and interpreting for it was a difficult challenge.

It was unpredictable, he said, as the victims and the relatives or anyone who represented them could be part of heightened emotions at the court, he said before the hearing.

“I am very humbled to be able to serve the country in this way. I would like to give special thanks to my legal and health interpreting lecturers, Jo Anna Burn and Ineke Crezee, both subject experts and excellent teachers.”

Interpreters do not just put together words in different languages, Dr Derbashi said. They need to be trusted and to have an ethical commitment which includes confidentiality, but also to convey the message as it is, without any omission or addition.

Court interpreting also has its own challenges.

Flexibility, impartiality needed
“You need to have not just a flexibility, but to be really impartial and ready to face any situation, particularly emotionally, psychologically and when you are talking about legal terms,” he said.

“Even if somebody swears, you need to go there.”

For example, a defence lawyer in a case might use vivid language to ask a victim whether sexual harassment and rape really happened.

If the interpreter could not interpret the question properly, then there could be a miscarriage of justice with an offender getting away with a crime.

Dr Derbashi also interpreted at the Dunedin vigil for the victims of the Christchurch mosque attacks.

“That was the first huge event I did. I was chosen by the Dunedin City Council at that time… and all the feedback that came afterwards was really amazing,” he said.

“For three hours I interpreted for more than 22 speakers, without knowing anything in advance about their speeches. It was a great honour, and a great challenge as well.”

This article is republished by the Pacific Media Centre from AUT News.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Warning: This story discusses details of the 15 March 2019 Christchurch mosque massacre.

At what point in time does an atrocity have a beginning? Is it when the first gunshot is fired? When the first victim is killed? When a killer first submits to thoughts of hatred, alienation, blame and decides to apply those emotions into physical action? Or, is it when racism is justified, when killing is considered defensible by those in whom one chooses to associate with, to support, to impress? Is it when one subscribes to another’s ideology of hate? Or when silence is a protector – chosen by reasonable people – when those around us speak of inhuman things?

“Ok lads, enough talking, it’s time for action.” With those words early on 15 March 2019, and expressed to his dark-net acquaintances, Brenton Harrison Tarrant initiated his plan to murder as many people of the Muslim faith as was possible.

Tarrant then packed six firearms into his vehicle, including two military-styled assault rifles (AR-15 .223 calibre) and semi-automatic shotguns. He added 7000 rounds of ammunition, a bayonet-styled knife, and four IEDs (improvised explosive devices).

Wrapped within a bulletproof-vest he reversed from the driveway of his rented Dunedin home and self-drove 361km northward to New Zealand’s largest South Island city, Christchurch.

Reconnaissance
Christchurch is known for its gardens, parks, sport, English-Victorian-styled architecture, earthquakes, parochialism, a modest inter-faith Muslim community; and, paradoxically, its white extremist gangs.

Two months earlier, in January 2019, Tarrant visited Christchurch. The purpose: reconnaissance of Al Noor Mosque – a place of prayer and worship for hundreds of the city’s Muslim people.

In January, Tarrant parked his vehicle adjacent to Al Noor Mosque, unpacked a drone and flew it above and over the facility. He recorded an aerial view video of the grounds, noting points of entry, exits, corridors where people could escape, where they could hide.

Tarrant observed how hundreds of people would attend Friday prayers. He decided Al Noor was the location, and, Friday was to be the day of the week which provided him an opportunity to kill as many people as possible on one single afternoon.

Christchurch is also a city built on a plane. Geographically it rests on a flat ancient seabed – framed only by the Port Hills to the south and the towering Southern Alps to the west. The city’s traffic is characteristically light (compared to other cities) and the route from Al Noor Mosque to nearby Linwood Islamic Centre is a short drive. Tarrant fathomed that even with news of a mass killer in the area, traffic would most likely be light.

Tarrant quietly, and unobserved, took notes. Once satisfied, he returned to Dunedin where he determinedly, and with precision, planned mass murder.

At no time during the reconnaissance, nor the planning phase, did New Zealand police nor Australia’s police, the Security Intelligence Services, the New Zealand Government Communications Security Bureau notice what was being planned and expressed online. Brenton Tarrant’s intensifying hatred grew, undeterred, against those who were not white. As is the case of many Western nations, New Zealand, along with its Five Eyes intelligence partners, Australia, Canada, Britain and the United States of America, had appeared more preoccupied with surveillance of those of Muslim and Islamic origins than they were of disarming an intensifying white extremist threat.

Alpha and Omega
In the early afternoon of 15 March 2019, Tarrant arrived at his first waypoint. He parked his vehicle in a neighbouring driveway. Around 190 worshippers (children, women, men) had already arrived at Al Noor Mosque and others were still making their way there for Friday Prayers.

It was a warm late Summers day. In a nearby park, people were playing. School children were enjoying the peace and fun that the garden city offered.

Inside his vehicle, Tarrant strapped his bulletproof vest tightly to his body. He put on a helmet. Earlier, he had fixed a video camera and a strobe light to the helmet – the latter was designed to confuse his intended victims; the camera was connected to the internet via a cellphone device so as to provide Tarrant the opportunity to livestream his intended atrocity to a Facebook audience.

Tarrant then sent a “Manifesto” to a white extremist website. He also emailed his intentions (with Manifesto attached) to the New Zealand Government, to Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, and to national and international media.

Minutes later, Tarrant weaponed up, stepping from his vehicle he carried two semi-automatic firearms (including a shotgun) with multiple magazines, and approached the entrance to Al Noor Mosque.

“At that time four worshippers, Mounir Soliman, Syed Ali, Amjad Hamid and Hussein Moustafa, were at the mosque’s front entrance. Without warning you discharged the shotgun multiple times in quick succession, killing each of them. A wounded Mr Moustafa was despatched by you at point-blank range with shots to his back and head.” [New Zealand High Court ruling, Justice Mander, August 27, 2020].

That was just the beginning, the moment Brenton Tarrant decided to open fire, ultimately putting his plan into action. His hateful journey, once conceived in his past, had been nurtured by those with whom he chose to associate with. His racist views had become darker by the month. His decision to become a mass murderer, a terrorist by his own definition and admission, was now a reality.

Catharsis from horror
Throughout the week of August 24-27, New Zealanders discovered how detailed Tarrant’s plan was. There was a risk, due to Tarrant’s guilty plea (lodged some months earlier) and his decision to refuse legal assistance, that details of his crimes – forensically applied to a timeline by detectives, scientists and prosecutors – would be sealed beyond the reach and rightful consideration of survivors. New Zealanders of all ethnicities, colour and religions too, needed to hear detail of how this monstrous act of terrorism could have occurred in this relatively peaceful land.

Officially, the High Court summarised the charges:

“The Offender pleaded guilty to 51 charges of murder, 40 of attempted murder and one of committing a terrorist act after shooting worshippers at two mosques in Christchurch. Court held that no minimum period of imprisonment would be sufficient to satisfy the purpose of sentencing. Offender sentenced to life imprisonment without parole under s 103 (2A) Sentencing Act 2002.”

There was also a concern, that Tarrant, who had the legal right to address the High Court, would use that opportunity to express his white extremist ideology. As a preventive measure, the High Court’s Justice Mander applied tight controls on media, and insisted Tarrant would be withdrawn from the Court should he begin such a tirade.

Victims and survivors were offered the right to speak their impact statements to the court and, significantly to tell Tarrant what they thought of him, and of the true consequences his actions had had on their lives.

Initially, 60 people wished to read their statements to the court and to the killer. Others, after observing how their fellow Muslims accounts somehow were beneficial, also wished to have their experiences told.

Some spoke of how Tarrant had failed in his purpose, as their faith had strengthened since the murders, that they as a community had become stronger, and how loved they had felt when New Zealanders of all colours embraced them as valued members of the nation’s family. A common account reiterated how ‘you sought to divide us, to alienate us. You failed’.

While in court, Tarrant’s deportment was passive, absolutely. Whenever he was ushered into the court, his hands and legs bound in shackles, he was assisted by officers to sit before the packed public gallery. When the judge addressed him, he was respectfully at full attention. When addressed by his victims’ loved ones and survivors, he was attentive, although without emotion.

At one point, a murdered victims’ mother addressed Tarrant. She stated she had “no hate for him” as a person, that she forgave him. Tarrant acknowledged her with a nod. Began to blink rapidly and appeared to wipe a tear from his eye. Shortly after, New Zealanders learned that the killer had withdrawn his intention to address the court.

A total of 98 victims and loved ones read their impact statements to the court and to Tarrant. Some expressing distress and some anger. The killer was referred to as a “coward” by a school teacher, whose brother was murdered in cold blood. Another man, the son of a middle aged worshipper addressed Tarrant as a “maggot”. Another, that Tarrant was nothing but “rotten meat” to him. Three men concluded their account with a Muslim prayer and chanted Allahu Akbar while pointing defiantly at Tarrant.

The court observed in silence, noting the tragic recount of events told by those who suffer injuries from the bullet, the experience leaving physical, mental, emotional, social wounds as a consequence of Tarrant’s crimes – but none expressed a loss of faith in Islam nor of New Zealand as a community.

As Radio New Zealand reports: “One survivor, Dr Hamimah Tuyan left her two sons in Singapore to travel to the High Court in Christchurch to speak and honour her late husband, Zekeriya – the 51st victim to die.”

She told Radio New Zealand’s Morning Report she wrestled for some time if she should write a statement. Once she came back to Christchurch she decided she would listen to every victim statement delivered in court: “I was just so inspired by the brave brothers and sisters – their words, their feelings. I’m just so glad that I actually wrote it and opted to read it. That was the only way I could represent my husband and my boys,” she said on live radio.

Dr Hamimah Tuyan said she felt a weight lift from her shoulders and then left everything in the hands of God and the judge.

“We were all calm after the last session and basically waited … listening to each and every word of Judge Mander’s sentence until the end – two hours.” [Radio New Zealand].

She, and many others, spoke of catharsis in having had the courage to speak of their experience and their strength, and of the bravery of their loved ones who died on 15 March 2019.

Cold blooded reality
Then came the judge’s ruling. For four hours, Justice Mander read a precise account of what happened that day. In a move that was welcomed by the victims and New Zealanders, Justice Mander spoke of each victim and of their character, of the circumstances of how each person died.

For the first time, New Zealanders learned of the cold blooded reality of the consequences of hate that tore at the heart of the Muslim community that day.

Accounts like:

“As you made your way down the hallway of the mosque to the main prayer area, you shot Ata Mohammad Ata Elayyan and Ali Elmadani, murdering both men. You then entered the main prayer room at the rear of the building. There were over 120 worshippers present. They had heard the gunfire. Appreciating that something was very wrong, they moved to each side of the large open prayer area to where there were single exits in each corner.

“When you entered the main prayer room you initially fired at worshippers who were lying on the ground. You shot Ziyaad Shah. You then turned to the two large groups gathered on each side of the prayer area. There was little chance of escape. You fired your semi-automatic firearm into the mass of people on one side of the room. The rate of fire was extremely rapid. You repeatedly moved your weapon across that side of the room before turning to the other group of trapped people on the opposite side.

“As you turned your semi-automatic weapon on these worshippers, Naeem Rashid ran at you. Despite being shot, he crashed into you, forcing you down on one knee and dislodging a magazine from your vest. Mr Rashid had been hit in the shoulder and, as he lay on his back, you fired further shots at him. Mr Rashid died but his bravery allowed a number of his fellow worshippers to escape.

“By this stage you had emptied a 60-round magazine. You replaced that with another. Standing in the middle of the room, you fired rapid bursts towards each side of the prayer room where people were trying to hide or were attempting to escape. After reloading yet again, you continued to shoot at persons lying prone or trying to escape. You discharged rapid bursts across both sides of the room before approaching individual victims and shooting them. As Ashraf Ragheb sought to escape from a side room down the hallway to the main entrance, you shot and killed him. Already there were many dead.

“You moved closer to each now piled group of people lying deceased, wounded or feigning death on each side of the main prayer room. Worshippers, who were either crying out for help or who appeared to be alive, were systematically shot in the head. One of those was a three-year-old child, Mucaad Ibrahim. He was clinging to his father’s leg and you murdered him with two aimed shots.”

The judge continued, detailing how Brenton Tarrant then made his way outside Al Noor Mosque.

“Outside you shot at people attempting to flee. You shot Mohammad Faruk in the back, killing him. Wasseim Daragmih and his four-year-old daughter received life-threatening wounds. You fired in the opposite direction, hitting Sazada Akhter in the spine. She will be confined to a wheelchair for the rest of her life.

“Tarrant then returned to his vehicle. Quickly he rearmed himself with an assault rifle fitted with two 40 round magazines.

“You fired this weapon down a side driveway towards the back of the Mosque, murdering Muse Awale and Hamza Alhaj Mustafa, a 16-year-old boy who had escaped from the main prayer room and was sheltering behind vehicles. Another man, Mohammad Shamim Siddiqui, was critically wounded.

“You then returned to the main prayer room. As you entered you saw Md Hoq, who was wounded,sitting up against a window. You aimed one shot at Mr Hoq, killing him instantly, before firing further shots at a group of people lying in one corner. There were some 30 deceased or critically wounded worshippers in this mass of people. You delivered fatal shots to those who were still alive.

“You then reloaded your weapon and walked over to the group of people lying in the opposite corner and fired into them. You noticed Haji Nabi attempting to shelter behind a small wall. With two carefully aimed shots you murdered Mr Nabi before walking to within a metre of the piled group and firing further shots into those who were either deceased or mortally wounded. Any persons who showed signs of life were shot.”

The judge’s ruling continued on, every precise detail that the police, scientists, and prosecutors had discovered was read to Tarrant. The killer’s gaze remained attentive. Silently, he sat, emotionless, listening to every word.

Observers reflected on how Brenton Tarrant appeared a hollow shell of a human being. Immediately after his arrest, Tarrant presented as arrogant, remorseless, complaining to police that he was disappointed that he didn’t kill more people. He was then in peak physical condition, clearly having been working out regularly. But this week, he appeared without emotion, without purpose, passively listening to the accounts of victims and that of the judge detailing the facts of what he had done. He did not challenge the facts, rather he had accepted them as accurate, a true account of his crimes.

Justice Mander continued:

“After exiting the mosque for the second time you saw two women attempting to escape. You shot Ansi Karippakulam Alibava and Husna Ahmed. Ms Ahmed was killed. Ms Karippakulam Alibava was wounded. While she lay on the street, pleading for help, you murdered this defenceless young woman, firing two shots at her from point-blank range. You then returned to your vehicle and inflicted the indignity of driving over her body as she lay in front of the driveway from which you exited.”

Still, Tarrant remained emotionless, leaving some to ponder whether he was intent to create an enigma of himself, a mysterious figure who refused to offer any words or emotion upon which others may define him. Rather, he had earlier defined himself to appointed psychiatrists and psychologists as a “terrorist” and a “fascist”. He had stated to the clinicians, appointed to assess his personality and condition, that in the months leading up to the killings, he had sunken into despair, into a depression. That he was angry at the world and wanted to hurt it, damage it.

The child, the man:
Radio New Zealand investigated Brenton Tarrant’s background. The following segment is a paraphrase of that investigation.

Brenton Tarrant’s life experience was unremarkable, at least in the beginning. He was born on October 27, 1990 and raised in rural Australia, in a town called Grafton some 500km north of Sydney. He was the youngest of three siblings. His parents separated while he was still at school. He played sport (rugby league) but was overweight and was bullied, to a degree, by others of his age. His father worked as a rubbish collector, and his family was respected in the general Clarence Valley area.

One of Tarrant’s cousins told Australia’s 7News, there was little in his background that would have indicated problems ahead. But, when his father died of cancer when Tarrant was 20 years of age, he was crushed by the loss. He inherited A$500,000 from his fathers estate. Dabbled in investments. Then travelled extensively. It was during his overseas experience abroad, particularly in Europe, that he was radicalised.

Details are vague, but court accounts place him in France where he was attracted to white extremist groups with which he increasingly shared commonly held racist views. He continued to travel around Europe, and developed an interest in the countries that were once ruled by the Ottoman Empire, visiting historic battle sites. He travelled through greater Asia, visiting Pakistan and the border areas of Afghanistan.

Then, in August 2017 he emigrated to Dunedin, New Zealand. He joined a rifle club, acquired a firearms licence from the New Zealand Police, and joined a South Dunedin gym.

He kept largely to himself, isolating his ideas, his anger, his purpose from those around him.

Brenton Tarrant never sought to work in New Zealand and showed no intention to get a job.

Wider family members visited Tarrant while he lived in Dunedin. They returned to Australia, noting concerns to his immediate family that he was not in a good state of mind, and had shown them that he had many guns.

Then, as Radio New Zealand reported, Tarrant’s last message to the white extremist group on 8Chan came on 15 March 2019:

“’It’s been a long ride and … you are all top blokes and the best bunch of cobbers a man could ask for,”’Tarrant posted.

“Radio New Zealand noted: ‘His friends were faceless, his interactions existent only in cyberspace.’” [Radio New Zealand]

The courtroom account continued
Justice Mander:

“As you drove away from the Al Noor Mosque you continued to shoot at anyone who you considered should be the target of your hate. You discharged a shotgun at two men who appeared to be of African descent. A short distance on you saw Muhammad Nasir and his son walking towards the mosque dressed in traditional clothing. You again discharged the shotgun, seriously wounding Mr Nasir, before actioning the weapon again and pointing it directly at the boy who was trying to hide behind a wall. You pulled the trigger but it failed to fire.

“You then sped away, driving directly to the Linwood Islamic Centre. On the way you came abreast of another vehicle being driven by a Fijian man. You pointed your shotgun at him. Despite repeated attempts to discharge the shotgun it failed to fire.

“When you got to Linwood you approached the mosque on foot down a long driveway, armed with yet another firearm. You saw three people in and around a car. You shot Ghulam Hussain in the head, killing him, before firing at and wounding Muhammad Raza, who had got out of the other side of the vehicle. You shot another occupant of the car, Karam Bibi, before advancing up the driveway, where you saw Mr Raza attempting to find cover behind a fence. He attempted to retreat from you. Despite his pleas to spare him, you murdered him. A wounded Ms Bibi sought to hide in front of the vehicle. You walked to within metres of her as she lay prone with her head buried in her hands, stood over her, and killed her.”

Tarrant approached the mosque, passing a window. He saw a silhouette of a man. He shot him with a single shot to the head. The man’s name was Mohammed Khan.

With your weapon now empty, you ran down the driveway back to your vehicle. As you reached the car, Abdul Aziz Wahabazadah, who had courageously followed you down the driveway, challenged you. You retrieved another semi-automatic rifle from your vehicle and fired at him. He dived between some parked cars, before you walked back up the driveway to the main entrance to the mosque.

[Selwyn Manning’s author’s note: I wrote about this moment, in the German magazine Cicero.de in March 2019, shortly after the murders:]

“Inside Linwood Mosque was Abdul Aziz, a man who had gathered with his Muslim brothers. He had just begun his second prayer when he heard gunshots outside. At first he thought it was someone playing with firecrackers (fireworks). But then, within seconds, he heard people screaming.

“Mr Aziz picked up an EFTPOS (electronic funds transaction) machine from a table inside the mosque. He ran outside. He saw a man he describes as looking like a soldier. He said to the man: ‘Who are you?’ Mr Aziz then saw three people lying on the ground dead from shotgun blasts. He realised the man was the killer. He approached the attacker, threw the EFTPOS machine, hitting the killer, who in turn took from his vehicle a second firearm (a military style semi-automatic assault rifle) and fired four to five shots at Abdul Aziz, missing him. Then, in an attempt to lure the killer away from other people, Mr Aziz shouted at the killer from behind a car: ‘Come, I’m here. Come I’m here!’

“Mr Aziz said he didn’t want the killer to go inside the mosque and kill more people. But the killer remained focused. He walked directly to the entrance, once inside the mosque he continued his killing spree. Survivors speak of the killer wearing ‘army clothes’, dressed in ‘SWAT combat clothing’, helmeted, wearing a vest and a balaclava… Written on the rifle were the words, ‘Welcome to hell’.” [Attentat in Christchurch – Willkommen in der Hölle]

In the High Court this week, Justice Mander continued:

“There were several people standing inside the entranceway and further into the building at whom you repeatedly fired. You killed Musa Patel. Walking further into the mosque, you shot and killed Linda Armstrong. People were huddled in corners of the room or trying to escape as you fired your weapon, killing Mohamad Mohamedhosen. You continued to fire the semi-automatic rifle until it ran out of ammunition, at which point you dropped it and ran back to your vehicle.

“Mr Wahabazadah chased you down the driveway, yelling at you. You removed the bayonet from your vest but retreated in the face of his advance. As you began driving away, Mr Wahabazadah got close enough to throw one of your discarded weapons at your vehicle.

“After leaving the Linwood Mosque, your intention was to drive to Ashburton to attack another mosque, but your vehicle was rammed off the road by a police car and you were apprehended by two armed police officers. You were anxious not to be shot and offered no resistance,” Justice Mander read.

The judge then spoke about the character of each of those who were murdered, about people like:

“Haji Mohemmed Daoud Nabi was a 71-year-old who had been married to his wife for 46 years. He was a role model and leader to his family; a best friend to his children and to his wife. For them the pain and anguish never goes away. Mrs Nabi describes herself as ‘alive, but not living’.”

And…

“Ansi Karippakulam Alibava’s husband found her lying on the road. He sat down beside her until police told him it was not safe. He knew when ambulance staff were not treating her that she had died. He is devastated. He finds himself constantly reminded of the events of that day and the loss of his dear wife. He can find no solace.”

And…

“Ozair Kadir was training to be an airline pilot like his big brother. His death has left a scar on the hearts of his proud parents. His murder haunts his father.”

And…

“Sayyad Ahmad Milne was a precious 14-year-old boy with his whole life before him. His murder has left a huge hole in his parents’ hearts. Despite his father’s resilience and forgiveness, they grieve for him deeply.”

And… …

“Mucaad Aden Ibrahim was younger still — a three-year-old infant. His father described him as ‘the happiness of the household’ — a vibrant young boy who made friends with everyone he met. No family can recover from the murder of such a small child.”

In the end, Justice Mander considered what sentence is permitted under New Zealand law. As a liberal social democratic country, New Zealand repealed the death penalty for murder at the end of the 1950s.

After consideration, the judge sentenced Brenton Harrison Tarrant to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole – which means, he will die in prison. This is the first time any accused has received this sentence in New Zealand.

Officially, the judge delivered his order:

“On each of the 51 charges of murder (charges 1-51) you are sentenced to life imprisonment. I order that you serve the sentences without parole.

“On each of the 40 charges of attempted murder (charges 52-91) you are sentenced to concurrent terms of 12 years’ imprisonment.

“On the charge of committing a terrorist act (charge 92) you are sentenced to life imprisonment.

“I also direct that the four psychiatric and psychological reports prepared for this proceeding be made available to the Department of Corrections.”

And then came the judge’s final order:

“Stand down.”

On writing this account, I am mindful that we cannot republish a summary of each of the victims when 91 people have been either killed or maimed by one man’s actions. It feels terribly selective when choosing who to include, and who to exclude from this report. How can one apply news values to people who have had their present and future stolen from them? One cannot.

Therefore, I encourage you, readers, to read the unabridged ruling from the New Zealand High Court. While upsetting, it will offer a sober account of what occurs when hatred is left to grow inside us, when others do not know how to react or challenge when hatred is expressed: https://www.courtsofnz.govt.nz/assets/cases/R-v-Tarrant-sentencing-remarks-20200827.pdf

Also, there is this awful thing, this contemplation, this series of unanswered questions which remain after the killing ceases, well after the victims’ faces become one. Answers remain elusive even after the verdict is read, the sentence is delivered, and the survivors have been ushered home to pick up the pieces of their lives. We are left to wonder, why? That question, that one word, will haunt us for the rest of our days.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s reaction

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern:

“I want to acknowledge the strength of our Muslim community who shared their words in court over the past few days.

“You relived the horrific events of March 15 to chronicle what happened that day and the pain it has left behind.

“Nothing will take the pain away 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.

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

Alpha and Omega, as we began, so we close
At what point in time does an atrocity have a beginning? Is it when the first gunshot is fired? When the first victim is killed? When a killer first submits to thoughts of hatred, alienation, blame and decides to apply those emotions into physical action? Or, is it when racism is justified, when killing is considered defensible by those in whom one chooses to associate with, to support, to impress? Is it when one subscribes to another’s ideology of hate? Or when silence is a protector – chosen by reasonable people – when those around us speak of inhuman things?

Selwyn Manning is editor of Evening Report. A German language version of this article was published by Cicero.de magazine in Germany. We also invite you to view this week’s episode of A View from Afar with Paul Buchanan and Selwyn Manning where they discuss, in depth, the causes, impact and possible solutions when dealing with white extremism.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Warning: This story discusses details of the 15 March 2019 Christchurch mosque massacre.

An Auckland University law professor says there is a risk the mosque terrorist could walk the streets of Sydney if he was deported to Australia to serve his life sentence.

After a four-day sentencing hearing in the High Court in Christchurch, Australian Brenton Tarrant, 29, was sentenced yesterday to spend the rest of his life in prison with no chance of parole.

Justice Cameron Mander’s sentence marked the first time in New Zealand’s history that the harshest punishment has been imposed.

Shortly after the sentencing, New Zealand First Leader and Foreign Minister Winston Peters said Tarrant should be deported to his home country.

But Professor Bill Hodge told RNZ First Up there was no law in place where a sentence could be transferred, so Australia would not have to keep to the terms of the sentence.

He told First Up a new law would be required in New Zealand – but more importantly, a new law would be needed in Australia.

“Because if he’s deported now, gets on a plane and goes over to Sydney, he can just walk free because there is no statutory authority, no power to enforce the New Zealand sentence in Australia at the moment.”

Rainbow Warrior spies transfer
New Zealand has been down this pathway before more than 30 years ago.

The two French spies in jail for 10 years for manslaughter in the 1985 bombing of the Rainbow Warrior in Auckland harbour were allowed to be transferred for three years in military detention on Hao atoll in French Polynesia under a deal agreed to with France by former prime minister David Lange.

Before very long both prisoners were back home.

“We got burned quite frankly…”

Hodge said moving the terrorist would have to be with Australia’s cooperation and he could not see why they would agree to it.

“We don’t know exactly what their attitude is …let’s not go down that pathway until we get something really sealed in cement over there to make sure he will stay inside and not become part of a reality TV show, which is what happened to one person who came back from [jail in] Indonesia.”

Morrison open to prospect
The ABC is reports that Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has left the door open to working with New Zealand on the issue, but there would be some hurdles to overcome.

Despite the strong ties between Australia and New Zealand, there is no formal prisoner transfer deal between the two countries.

Prisoner transfers are different to extraditions – which is when one country demands another help to secure someone wanted for an offence, and have them shipped over to face investigation and trial.

International law expert Professor Don Rothwell, from the Australian National University, said there were multiple options that could be pursued if the transfer was on the cards.

But he said the most likely was what he described as the “David Hicks option”.

Hicks, who was captured in Afghanistan in 2001 and spent time in Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, was sentenced by a military commission in the United States.

“Australia and the US negotiated a special agreement purely to deal with the Hicks situation, and that was appropriate given the security concerns and legal issues,” Professor Rothwell said.

The key difference
The key difference is that Hicks only had to serve another nine months in jail (his conviction was set aside by a US court in 2015).

The mosque gunman’s sentence expires when he dies. So, keeping him behind bars for the rest of his life would need to be an explicit term in any agreement.

There are two other potential options for transferring him to Australia.

The first would be for the two countries to negotiate a new bilateral prisoner transfer treaty. The second possibility would be for New Zealand to sign up to an international convention, such as the Council of Europe Convention on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons.

“The Christchurch gunman is going to be an irritant in Australia-New Zealand relations for some time,” Melissa Conley Tyler from the Asia Institute at the University of Melbourne said.

“New Zealand is very aware that when its citizens are convicted of crimes in Australia, we deport them back to New Zealand – admittedly after they’ve served their sentences – and this is for much less serious crimes.

“From a New Zealand perspective, this is a terrorist who is an Australian citizen and New Zealand taxpayers will be footing the bill for his incarceration for the rest of his life.

“So even though Australia may not be legally obliged to agree to a transfer, I’d expect that New Zealand will continue to make this request.”

‘Proud’ of NZ’s justice system
In relation to how the justice system has operated with regard to the arrest and trial of the terrorist, from the police response on the day of the 15 March 2019 attacks to the conclusion with the handing down of the sentence yesterday, Professor Hodge said it had been through a stress test and had been proved “fit for purpose”.

As a teacher in a law school it had made him feel proud, he said.

“I think all New Zealanders were brought into that courtroom by the judge by his very powerful speech. It was denunciation; it was speaking for the nation; and it showed a unique purpose that we don’t see very often in New Zealand courtrooms.

“I think justice has come to the fore in a very positive way and I’m proud of it.”

This article is republished by the Pacific Media Centre under a partnership agreement with RNZ.

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A man who confronted a terrorist on the day of the New Zealand killings and again during his sentencing in the High Court says the perpetrator has got “what he deserved”.

After a four-day sentencing hearing in the High Court in Christchurch, Australian Brenton Tarrant, 29, was sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison with no chance of parole.

Justice Cameron Mander’s sentence marked the first time in this country’s history that the harshest punishment has been imposed.

READ MORE: Mosque tragedy reports on Asia Pacific Report

Many of the 98 victims who shared their impact statements in court this week had pleaded with the judge to take this course.

Abdul Aziz Wahabzadah confronted the murderer on the third day of the hearings with some taunting words in his victim impact statement.

He was also hailed as a hero on the day of the attacks because he challenged and chased the terrorist from the Linwood Mosque.

At the end of his statement, the judge commended him for his bravery. Abdul Aziz told RNZ Morning Report that was “a great honour” but he was focusing on “the coward” in court who had taken away so many of his fellow Muslims.

Stirring up stark memories
Facing him in court had been difficult, stirring up stark memories of seeing two elderly women and a man lying fatally shot on the ground.

“There was a lot of hate and a lot of anger but you have to control it because we have to follow the law.

“We waited for a long time for that day and we achieved what we wanted and he achieved what he deserved.”

The Muslim community will move on. “Because we don’t have any other choice, we have to move on with our lives because we cannot bring the brothers and sisters, the ones who died, back. We have no choice.”

In response to NZ First’s leader Winston Peters call for the gunman to be imprisoned in Australia, he said the terrorist was “a piece of rotten meat” that no one wanted, and it was up to the two governments.

“He held the flag of that country with hate and shame… who wants such a person back in the country?”

It was important that the killer was also found guilty of terrorism. The tragedy has helped the world see that Muslims are peaceful people, not the terrorists that they are so often portrayed, Abdul Aziz said.

‘Brave brothers and sisters’
Dr Hamimah Tuyan left her two sons in Singapore to travel to the High Court in Christchurch to speak and honour her late husband, Zekeriya – the 51st victim to die.

She told Morning Report she wrestled for some time if she should write a statement. Once she came back to Christchurch she decided she would listen to every victim statement delivered in court.

“I was just so inspired by the brave brothers and sisters – their words, their feelings. I’m just so glad that I actually wrote it and opted to read it. That was the only way I could represent my husband and my boys.”

She did not want to look at the gunman and was surprised to find herself smiling at him when she entered court. That set the tone for the delivery of her statement. “He was attentive… I appreciated that he looked at me and was attentive.”

After reading out her statement, she like many others, felt a weight lift from her shoulders and then left everything in the hands of God and the judge.

“We were all calm after the last session and basically waited … listening to each and every word of Judge Mander’s sentence until the end – two hours.”

The sentence left her feeling “very relieved, we prayed for this outcome and the judge handed it to him with such mana and such grace”.

Four months in writing
Aya Al-Umari, who lost her brother, Hussein, at the Al Noor Mosque, told Morning Report her impact statement was four months in the writing.

She found it almost impossible because there were no words to express the experience of having lunch with her brother one day, and then having to think of burying him the next.

She said her mother, Janna Ezat, went “off-script” to offer forgiveness to the mass killer with her address. Her mother was a superwoman, Al-Umari said, and seemed to arouse some emotion in the gunman who wiped his eye.

“What my mum said would move mountains. So I don’t want to believe he has feelings, because he didn’t have any feelings when he killed 51 of us… I think my mother’s words really echoed, really moved mountains but I’m not sure [about the gunman’s response].”

Going on the Hajj to Mecca gave her some internal peace and tranquillity and now that the sentencing is over, she is adjusting to the new family structure without her brother.

Hisham al-Zarzour, who survived the shooting at Al Noor Mosque because he was trapped under a pile of bodies, told Morning Report yesterday was a big day for all New Zealanders as well as the Muslim community.

Judgment ‘helpful for victims’
“The judgment was helpful for all the victims, especially when we know this is the first time for New Zealand… New Zealand proved to all the world this is a place for justice.”

He is grateful to Justice Mander for his thorough address before announcing the sentence. The judge had acknowledged the scale of the victims’ losses and did not believe that the terrorist felt any remorse.

“We’ll heal a little … at least we can feel we’re in a safe place.”

The terrorist had a distorted view of history, Hisham said, and in his impact statement he had tried to correct his misguided views.

Despite losing his wife, Husna, in the attacks, Farid Ahmed did not attend the sentencing hearing.

Immediately after the attacks he made a point of forgiving the gunman, believing that he was a victim of wrong ideas.

The gunman had spoken through his bullets and Farid did not want to hear anything new from him.

“I didn’t want to give him the false gratification of telling him how I hurt and how I suffered.”

He said he felt love for the Muslim community and he respected their decision to take part in the hearing.

Despite not attending court, he still wanted to meet the terrorist in person to talk to him about why he carried out the massacre.

This article is republished by the Pacific Media Centre under a partnership agreement with RNZ.

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ANALYSIS: By Alexander Gillespie, of the University of Waikato

Was Brenton Tarrant’s silence and acceptance of sentence in court a final act to expand his notoriety? Was his disavowal of previously expressed ideological views a trick?

A person capable of planning the Christchurch mosque attacks so methodically may well have mapped the last public chapter, too. By saying little and expressing no real remorse, alone and without even his own lawyer, was he hoping the world would see a determined stoicism, an enigma?

Or did he simply realise the controls around court behaviour were so well designed that he couldn’t hijack proceedings?

For now at least, we can’t know. All we can say for sure is what the High Court in New Zealand has heard over the days leading to today’s sentence of life in prison with no minimum parole: using overwhelming firepower against defenceless civilians he took the lives of 51 men, women and children, injured many more and left even more bereft.

His silence notwithstanding, then, he is not an enigma.

As the first person in New Zealand to be convicted of terrorism, he comes from the same dark place that spawned the likes of Anders Breivik in Norway, Darren Osborne (who drove a truck into Muslim worshippers in London in 2017) and Dylann Roof (who attacked black parishioners in a South Carolina church in 2015).

Tarrant had even carved the names of Alexandre Bissonette (who attacked a mosque in Quebec in 2017) and Luca Traini (who attacked African migrants in Italy in 2018) on the magazines of his guns.

So now he joins that list of mass murderers, animated by a hatred of tolerance, equality and multicultural values, who came to believe indiscriminate violence against unarmed civilians was justified.

The first ever non-parole sentence
If this was America, he could have been sentenced to death or given a cumulative jail sentence of over 1,000 years. Neither option is available in New Zealand. There are many good reasons for having no death penalty, including in this case the denial of any aspirations to martyrdom.

The most extreme penalty New Zealand law does allow is jail for life without any minimum parole period. Although a sentence of 30 years without parole has been imposed, life without parole has never been given.

It is fair to say that Judge Mander, who did an excellent job throughout, met public expectation with his decision to ensure Tarrant never again walks outside a guarded wall.

What the law demands
Such a sentence is justified if the court is satisfied no minimum term of imprisonment would be enough to satisfy the main considerations: accountability, denouncement, deterrence or protecting the community.

In short, the Sentencing Act sets out the purposes of sentencing: to hold the offender to account for the harm done to the victims and the wider community, to denounce the crime and deter others from replicating those acts.

Supplementary principles a sentencing judge must consider include the gravity of the offending and its seriousness compared to other types of offences. The judge is required “to impose the maximum penalty prescribed for the offence if the offending is within the most serious of cases for which that penalty is prescribed” (unless there are mitigating circumstances).

The only mitigation that would have carried weight in this case was Tarrant pleading guilty and therefore shortening proceedings. Other mitigating factors, such as remorse or offers to make amends, were not to be seen or were deemed not genuine.

Placing the victims first
The other principle Judge Mander had to take into account relates to the effect of the offending on the victims. As the 91 victim impact statements heard over three days made clear, those victims displayed remarkable fortitude, bravery, wisdom and humanity.

But the black hole of pain the killer left in his wake is near incomprehensible.

Further aggravating factors justifying this sentence were that these were pre-meditated crimes of hate, terrorism, particular cruelty and involved the use of weapons.

Tarrant ticked all of the boxes. The enormity of his crimes made them unlike anything that had gone before. New Zealand has experienced mass shootings in the past, and murders based on racial hatred, but nothing of this scale.

On top of that, no one had employed the internet to spread hatred as happened in Christchurch, nor has anyone pleaded guilty to an act of terrorism before.

When all of these considerations were put on the scales of justice, Judge Mander would have seen that, small acts of mitigation aside, an unprecedented sentence was the only appropriate outcome for an unprecedented crime.

Dr Alexander Gillespie is professor of law at the University of Waikato. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Warning: This story discusses details of the 15 March 2019 Christchurch mosque massacre.

The man who carried out the New Zealand mosque attacks in Christchurch on 15 March 2019 has been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of ever leaving jail.

Australian Brenton Tarrant, 29, had earlier admitted 51 charges of murder, 40 of attempted murder and one charge of terrorism.

Justice Cameron Mander this afternoon imposed the sentence – the harshest available to the court.

It marks the first time a convicted person has ever been imprisoned in New Zealand with no possibility of parole.

Tarrant murdered 51 worshippers at Al Noor Mosque and Linwood Islamic Centre on 15 March last year.

He also shot and injured 40 more in an attempt to murder them.

Tarrant was also sentenced to life imprisonment on one count of engaging in a terrorist act.

First sentencing under Terrorism Suppression Act
It marked the first time anyone was sentenced for offending under the Terrorism Suppression Act.

The terrorist did not oppose being jailed without the possibility of parole.

A packed public gallery and seven other courtrooms filled with victims, their families and supporters watched as the sentence was handed down.

They shared hugs and tears after court was adjourned.

Before handing down the sentence, Justice Cameron Mander read through the names of the murder victims, relaying details of their lives and the shattered families they left behind to the terrorist.

He then detailed the injuries of the 40 survivors of the attack.

The survivors had to endure long-lasting and deep-seated trauma as a result of the attack, Justice Mander said.

Mosques ‘places of sanctuary’
“The mosques were places of sanctuary, this country too … was also seen as a place of refuge and safety by many of those you targeted,” he said.

“I have no doubt you came to New Zealand and targeted its Muslim community for that very reason.”

The attack was inhuman, the judge said.

“You showed no mercy.

“You ignored the pleas of the wounded to be spared. You advanced on them, stood over them and shot them.”

The terrorist was motivated by a “base hatred of people perceived to be different from yourself”.

“It is not apparent that you are genuinely remorseful for your actions apart from the circumstances in which you now find yourself,” Justice Mander said.

The terrorist’s hateful ideology was anathema to the values of New Zealand’s society.

“It has no place here. It has no place anywhere,” the judge said.

‘A painful and harrowing mark in NZ’s history’

Prosecutor Mark Zarifeh told the court Tarrant was “clearly New Zealand’s worst murderer”.

“He has caused permanent and immeasurable suffering and harm to the victims’ families, the Muslim community and to the rest of New Zealand,” Zarifeh said.

He described the Christchurch terror attack as a “painful and harrowing mark in New Zealand’s history”.

The attack was premeditated, extremely violent, brutal, cruel and callous.

“The offender demonstrated calculated and militaristic determination in carrying out this plan,” Zarifeh said.

“The significance of the location of the offending – two places of worship – to the victims cannot be overlooked.

“The calculated sadism and depravity exhibited by the offender cannot be overstated.”

His offending had caused real fear of similar terror attacks in future and imposing life imprisonment without parole was a necessary deterrent.

Tarrant’s actions were designed to “inflict extreme fear, horror and loss to the Muslim and non-Caucasian population of Christchurch”.

Zarifeh detailed a report from April following the terrorist speaking to Corrections.

“The offender’s statements are often paradoxical in the report. He is noted by the report writer as showing no remorse, talking about his victims in the abstract, showing no concern for the families of those affected and speaking in a matter of fact manner about the offending,” Zarifeh said.

Terrorist admits he had a ‘poisoned emotional state’
“However, the offender himself goes onto describe the offending as unnecessary, abhorrent and irrational, and that nothing good came from the offending.

“The offender told the report writer the political and social views he had to justify the offending were not real. He said he had a poisoned emotional state and was terribly unhappy. He said he felt ostracised by society and wanted to damage society as an act of revenge.

“Yet at the same time the offender described the offending as definitely an act of terrorism and he goes onto state that he wasn’t racist or xenophobic and didn’t target his victims based on their ethnicity.

“He said he targeted a religion but then claimed he had no issue with Islam.

“Similar changes in view and disavowing his previously held ideology have also been expressed to a psychologist and psychiatrist recently. However, the reliability of this in their view remains questionable.”

Standby counsel, Pip Hall QC, told the court he only had one submission to make to the court.

“Mr Tarrant does not oppose the application that he should be sentenced to life imprisonment without parole,” Hall said.

Submission draws surprise
The submission drew surprise from the public gallery, with one man saying “wow”.

Justice Mander asked the terrorist directly if he wished to make any further submission.

“No. Thank you,” Tarrant said from his seat in the dock.

When asked by the judge if he understood he had the right to make further submissions, he nodded in acknowledgement.

Kerry Cook, who was appointed as amicus curiae – a friend of the court, argued against life imprisonment.

He pointed to three factors which made such a sentence unjust – his guilty pleas, his potential for rehabilitation, and the constitutionality of life without parole.

“There must be some tangible credit for those pleas which have avoided a long and costly trial,” Cook said.

‘Recalibration’ in his ideology
“This court has seen through some comments by the prisoner there has been some recalibration in his ideology. His manifesto made it clear he would not be pleading guilty and yet he did. The views he held then are not the views he holds now, and there may be some further shift in future.”

Lastly, Cook submitted imposing a sentence of life imprisonment without parole would breach New Zealand’s Bill of Rights, specifically the right not to be subjected to torture or to cruel, degrading, or disproportionately severe treatment or punishment and the right not to be arbitrarily detained.

He called for a sentence of life imprisonment with a finite non-parole period. However, Tarrant would only leave jail once his risk to society had appropriately diminished.

“Life does mean life if an undue risk is still present,” Cook said.

At the time of the terror attack, the terrorist had no prior criminal history.

Victims sought harshest sentence
Many of the victims who have been delivering their harrowing statements in court this week urged the judge to impose the sentence.

The possibility of such a sentence was one of the many complexities facing Justice Mander, the Law Society said earlier this week.

A steady stream of people started entering the High Court from the time the doors opened at 8am today.

White roses were handed out to the victims as they arrived in court. They were donated as a gesture of support from two women.

The last group of 93 victims read their impact statements yesterday afternoon – a marked increase on the 66 that were expected.

Community adviser and former Christchurch city councillor Raf Manji, who delivered some of the impact statements on behalf of the victims, said victims had been empowered by the way the hearing had been handled.

“In the end it has been a real healing process for a lot of people,” Manji said.

The session today began with the Crown making its submissions before Pip Hall QC, who has been on standby, made submissions on behalf of Tarrant.

Late yesterday it emerged that Tarrant, who is representing himself, would not address the judge to offer any mitigating factors to explain the motivation behind his crimes.

This article is republished by the Pacific Media Centre under a partnership agreement with RNZ.

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Warning: This story discusses details of the 15 March 2019 Christchurch mosque massacre.

The contrast cannot be more stark. The bravery of a 15-year-old girl, and the cowardice of a 29-year-old terrorist.

Brenton Harrison Tarrant is facing sentencing in the High Court at Christchurch for the murder of 51 worshippers at two mosques on 15 March 2019.

He has admitted 51 counts of murder, 40 of attempted murder and one charge under the Terrorism Suppression Act.

This afternoon the final victims spoke to the court. Just before the court adjourned for the day, it was confirmed that Tarrant would not address the court in his own defence.

A 15-year-old girl, who cannot be named, this afternoon confronted the terrorist directly during her victim impact statement.

“Why did you kill my dad? Why did you take the most important person away?” she asked him.

“He will always be in my heart and the hearts of those who love him. But you, you will be alone in prison.

‘The only one who lost everything is you’
“The only one who lost everything was you. Congratulations Mr Terrorist, you have failed.”

The terrorist’s cowardice was often pointed out during this afternoon’s session.

Sehan El Wakil told the terrorist he was a coward.

“If you were a real man you would have faced them [the victims], face-to-face, not with a gun behind their backs,” she said.

Abdul Aziz Wahabzadah, who chased Tarrant from Linwood Islamic Centre using an eftpos machine, told the terrorist he should thank Allah he did not catch him on 15 March 2019.

“He acts very tough but, to be honest with you, he’s nothing,” Wahabzadah said.

After the attack, police officers asked him for a description of the terrorist: “I told them, ‘He doesn’t look like a man’.”

Wahabzadah accompanied officers to the police station to give a statement.

It was there he found out the terrorist had been arrested.

‘Give me 15 minutes alone … with him’
“Your Honour, I pleaded to the police that day. I said, ‘Please give me 15 minutes alone in the cell with him, I want to see how many guts he has without a gun’,” he told the court.

“But they refused. I know because they have to follow the law.

“I saw the fear in his eyes when he was running for his life, your Honour.”

The terrorist was a coward, he said.

“You didn’t think about your mum, you didn’t think about your sister, how are they going to face the world with your coward act. You put their lives in danger. But you’re a coward, selfish, you didn’t care about them. I feel sorry for them. But not for you,” Wahabzadah said.

The government would have “saved a lot of money” if he was able to get his hands on Tarrant on that day, Wahabzadah said.

“You never forget these two eyes that you run from,” he said, finishing his victim impact statement.

Justice Cameron Mander stopped Wahabzadah from leaving.

Judge acknowledges courage
“Mr Wahabzadah, before you go. I’ve seen the video and I want to acknowledge your courage,” Justice Mander said, as the public gallery broke into applause.

The theme of Tarrant’s cowardice continued through the afternoon.

“You are a terrorist. You are a racist. You are a cold-blooded murderer who hides behind his weapons,” Feroz Ditta told Tarrant.

“Your time will come – that I can assure you, mate.

“For the rest of your life you won’t be able to embrace your parents and your family, and be part of their lives.

“You will no longer be able to hug your mother. They are at a loss because they have lost their son for the rest of their lives.”

This article is republished by the Pacific Media Centre under a partnership agreement with RNZ.

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Warning: This story discusses details of the 15 March 2019 Christchurch mosque massacre.

The last of the victim impact statements were being heard in a New Zealand court today on the third day of sentencing of the Christchurch mosque terrorist.

Brenton Harrison Tarrant is facing sentencing for the murder of 51 worshippers at two mosques on 15 March 2019.

The 29-year-old will also be sentenced on 40 counts of attempted murder and one charge under the Terrorism Suppression Act.

So far the court has heard from 56 victims of the attack.

About a dozen more are expected to speak today before the Crown makes its submissions on the sentence to be handed down to Tarrant.

The convicted terrorist will then have the opportunity to speak.

A standby lawyer is available to assist Tarrant if necessary.

Heavy with emotion and anger
Yesterday was heavy with emotion and anger.

Al Noor Mosque survivor Mirwais Waziri drew applause from the public gallery when he told Tarrant he had lifted a burden from him.

“In this whole time, 17 years, since I was living in New Zealand… people were calling me – because I was from Afghanistan – they were calling me, for fun or a joke or intentionally, a terrorist,” he said.

“But you took that from me.

“Today you are called a terrorist and you proved to the world that I was not and us, as Muslims, were not.”

The court also heard from Wasseim Sati Ali Daragmih, who was wounded in the attack.

“Good afternoon everyone – except you,” Daragmih said pointing at Tarrant.

The remark elicited a smile from the terrorist.

‘You have not succeeded’
“You think your actions have destroyed our community and shaken our faith, but you have not succeeded.

“You have made us come together with more determination and strength.

“So you have failed completely. So you have failed completely.”

The convicted terrorist nodded following the remarks about him being where he deserved to be and deserving the death penalty.

Nathan Smith, who converted to Islam about nine years ago, recalled the death of a small child at Al Noor Mosque.

“After you left Mosque Al Noor I was surrounded by the injured, the dying and the dead. I held a three-year-old boy in my arms praying he was alive – he was not. You took him away. He was three.”

Weight off his chest
A victim of the Christchurch mosque attacks said speaking directly to the gunman in the High Court took a weight off his chest.

Temel Atacocugu was shot nine times, and had his fifth surgery yesterday after giving his victim impact statement.

Speaking outside the High Court this morning, Atacocugu said he was nervous about what Tarrant could say, when the gunman has his only opportunity to speak later today.

But he said he felt empowered by his own opportunity to talk, having implored the gunman to “think for the rest of his life [about] what he did”.

“I passed the messages to him, and he was listening … it was a very emotional time for me,” he said.

“When I said my last words, kia kaha, then I believe a big weight has come off my shoulders, and feel stronger than before,” he said.

‘Cathartic’ experience for survivors
Former Christchurch city councillor Raf Manji, who is supporting mosque attack victims in court, said it had been a “cathartic” experience for people to let out 18 months of hurt and anger.

He said the process was helping people feel less like victims and more like survivors.

“The sentencing organisation has been good and it’s run really smoothly, so that has helped with people’s anxiety that they were feeling prior to the sentencing,” he said.

“But generally people are feeling positive about the experience, about the opportunity to speak, the opportunity to get out – almost expel some of the pain that they’ve been carrying.”

Manji said people’s initial apprehension about what Tarrant might say was diminishing.

“I mean this guy looks a shell of a person,” he said.

“He’s listening to the submissions and occasionally sort of acknowledging bits of them. So he’s paying attention but I don’t get the sense this is a guy who is going to use this as a platform.

‘Disappearing from people’s view’
“He’s in a way disappearing from people’s view. I mean one of the statements yesterday said you’re already kind of dead to me.”

Rashid Omar, whose son Tariq was murdered at Al Noor Mosque, recounted the pain he felt at learning of his son’s death.

“I remember being there with my kids and hugging them and I started crying with them. As a dad I’m meant to be strong for my family and as a dad be invincible in their eyes,” he said.

“I could not hold my emotion together to be strong for my family because I was hurting so much inside to hear that I had lost my baby Tariq this day.

“As a parent no matter how old your children are they will still be your baby forever.”

Ibrahim Abdelhalim, the imam at Linwood Islamic Centre, was leading Friday prayers when the terrorist opened fire.

“The gunfire was very fast and repetitive like a submachine gun,” he said.

“It was a horrible time.

‘Trapped inside the mosque’
“We had nowhere to go as we were trapped inside the mosque with the defendant standing at the entrance.

“The defendant stopped firing and I saw all the people who had been shot. Some were injured and some were dead.”

The widow of Naeem Rashid, who saved lives by charging at Tarrant as he carried out the slaughter at Al Noor Mosque, told the court of the difficulties of picking up the pieces of her life after losing her husband and eldest son, Talha.

Ambreen Naeem said her husband’s bravery brought her some solace, but it would never fill the void of his loss.

Naeem Rashid charged at the gunman as he shot at worshippers trying to flee the main prayer room at Al Noor Mosque. He crashed into Tarrant despite being shot and his actions allowed others to escape the prayer room.

Ambreen Naeem’s youngest surviving boy is only seven.

“I had to tell him that his father and Talha were very brave but that they aren’t coming home,” she said. “I had to tell him that they were in heaven with Allah.”

This article is republished by the Pacific Media Centre under a partnership agreement with RNZ.

Where to get help:
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Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz