Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Man pleads guilty to sharing shooting video
A CHRISTCHURCH businessman has pleaded guilty to sharing a live stream video that was recorded by a gunman last month as he began killing 50 people at two New Zealand mosques.
Philip Arps pleaded guilty to two counts of distributing the video and will remain in jail until he’s sentenced on June 14. He faces a maximum penalty of 14 years in prison.
Prosecutors accused the 44-year-old of sending the video to an unknown person and instructing that person to insert crosshairs and include a kill count. Prosecutors say he forwarded the entire video to 30 associates.
The gunman mounted a helmet camera and live streamed his attack on Facebook. The chilling 17-minute video was copied and viewed widely on the internet even as tech companies scrambled to remove it.
Meanwhile, Britain’s Prince William who is on a two-day trip to New Zealand visited the two mosques yesterday where a gunman killed 50 people last month and said the white supremacist accused of the massacre had failed in his mission to spread hate. The prince said he’d always been impressed by the way New Zealanders looked out to the world with optimism.
He also laid a wreath at a memorial wall built to commemorate the 185 people in Christchurch who died in a 2011 earthquake.
In other news, New Zealand police were left red-faced when a burglar stole 11 guns from a police station, some of which were surrendered to authorities in the aftermath of the mass shooting in Christchurch, police said yesterday.
Gun owners across the country are handing their guns to the police after the government passed tough new firearm laws banning semi-automatic military style firearms and other accessories. |
AP