In his car, the attacker had six firearms, two AR-15 rifles, two more rifles and two shotguns, as heard by the court, and also brought 4 changed fuel boxes that he planned to use to burn mosques after filming, Hawes said. The gunman then told the police he wanted me to use them.
Hawes also detailed the bravery of Naeem Rashid, who killed at al Noor Mosque.
He ran to the defendant from the southeast corner of the room. When Mr. Rashid was about 1 meter from the defendant, he turned the AR-15 and fired four shots at point-blank range,” Hawes said.
“Mr. Rashid crashed into the defendant and he fell to his knees,” Hawes said, adding that Tarrant was able to get up and shoot Rashid again.
At the time of the mosque, Abdul Aziz chased Tarrant down the aisle and yelled at him, prosecutors said, and threw an abandoned gun at his car, breaking a glass panel. Aziz was not injured.
Tarrant fired his lawyers and represented himself at sentencing, raising fears that he could use the courthouse as a platform to publicize his racist views. an end to all your attempts in a forum.
New Zealand abolished the death penalty for murder in 1961, and the longest sentence since then has been life imprisonment with a minimum of 30 years without parole. Judge Cameron Mander will impose the shooter’s sentence at the end of the hearing.
Attacks on others praying in al Noor and Linwood mosques surprised New Zealand and led to new legislation banning the deadliest types of semi-automatic weapons. They also provoked global adjustments to social media protocols after the shooter live-streamed his attack on Facebook, where he noticed it through thousands.
Prosecutors said that after Tarrant left linwood Mosque, he planned to drive to the town of Ashburton and attack a third mosque, but he went through two policemen, pulled him out of his car and arrested him.
Gamal Fouda, the imam of the Al Noor mosque who survived the shooting, told the court that the gunman’s movements were wrong.
“We are a loving and nonviolent network that did not deserve its actions,” Fouda said. “Your hatred is useless. If it does something, it will bring the global network closer to its wrongdoing. “