WELLINGTON : Christchurch mosque shooter Brenton Tarrant on Thursday was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole.
\nThis is the first time such a sentence has been handed down in the country.
\nTarrant admitted to 51 charges of murder, 40 counts of attempted murder and one charge of committing a terrorist act during the 2019 shooting rampage at two Christchurch mosques which he live streamed on Facebook.
\nHigh Court Judge Cameron Mander said in Christchurch on Thursday that a finite term would not be sufficient.
\n\u201cYour crimes, however, are so wicked that even if you are detained until you die it will not exhaust the requirements of punishment and denunciation,\u201d said Mander in handing down the sentence.
\n\u201cAs far as I can discern, you are empty of any empathy for your victims,\u201d he said.
\nTarrant, dressed in grey prison clothes and surrounded by guards, did not react to the sentence.
\nProsecutors told the court earlier that Tarrant wanted to instill fear in those he described as invaders and that he carefully planned the attacks to cause maximum carnage.
\nTarrant, who represented himself during the hearings but did not make submissions, said through a lawyer in court on Thursday that he did not oppose the prosecution\u2019s application for a life without parole sentence.
\n\u201cThe hatred that lies at the heart of your hostility to particular members of the community that you came to this country to murder has no place here \u2014 it has no place anywhere,\u201d Mander said.
\nThe judge asked Tarrant before handing down the sentence if he had any comment. Tarrant just nodded when asked if he was aware he had the right to make submissions, but he did not speak.
\nBefore Tarrant, triple-murderer William Bell was serving the longest sentence in New Zealand with a minimum non-parole prison term of 30 years for his 2001 crimes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WELLINGTON : Christchurch mosque shooter Brenton Tarrant on Thursday was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole. This is the first time such a sentence has been handed down in the country. Tarrant admitted to 51 charges of murder, 40 counts of attempted murder and one charge of committing a terrorist act during the 2019 shooting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":141017,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-141014","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world"],"yoast_head":"\n