Sent screed to PM, 70 others minutes before massacre
The white supremacist who allegedly slaughtered 50 people in two New Zealand mosques sent his hate-filled 16,500-word manifesto to the country’s prime minister less than 10 minutes before the attacks, reports said Saturday.
About 70 others, mostly news outlets and some politicians, also received the screed moments before gunman Brenton Tarrant stormed the first mosque in Christchurch, the New Zealand Herald reported.
A spokesman for Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern (right) said her office took action “almost immediately . . . by sending it to parliamentary security, who then would pass it on the police,” The New York Times reported.
The 74-page document, titled “The Great Replacement,” was e-mailed to a generic account for the prime minister’s office and did not detail any murderous plans.
Tarrant, a 28-year-old former personal trainer from New South Wales, Australia, also posted it to his since-deleted Twitter account and on message-board sites popular among extremists, including 8chan.
Government spokesman Andrew Campbell told the Herald that Tarrant’s manifesto was only “setting his reasons for” carrying out Friday’s terrorist attack.
“He didn’t say, ‘This is what I am about to do,’ ” Campbell added. “There was no opportunity to stop it.”
Police, meanwhile, raised the death toll to 50 after another body was found. It was unclear where the victim had been slain.
Tarrant had entered Al Noor Mosque at about 1:40 p.m., fatally shooting at least 41 people while livestreaming the attack over Facebook from a camera on his helmet.
He then drove three miles to the Linwood Islamic Center, where he killed at least seven more people, using five guns total. Another victim connected to the shooting was pronounced dead at a hospital.
Police captured Tarrant at about 3:30 p.m. in a dramatic arrest caught on video. Officials said he was armed to kill more people.
“The offender was mobile. There were two other firearms in the vehicle that the offender was in, and it absolutely was his intention to continue with his attack,” Ardern told reporters Saturday.
Three others were arrested, with two later released. Police charged one, an 18year-old man, on Saturday with intent to incite hostility or ill will. The charge was said to be tangential to the attack.
Tarrant’s manifesto characterizes his actions as “revenge” for Islamic terrorist attacks and says he hopes to spark a civil war in the US.
He says he is inspired by other white-supremacist mass murderers and claims to have contacted at least one.
“I have only had brief contact with Knight Justiciar Breivik, receiving a blessing for my mission after contacting his brother knights,” he wrote, referring to Anders Behring Breivik, a Norwegian who killed 77 people in July 2011 with a bombing in Oslo and a shooting spree at a youth summer camp.
Ibrahim Abdul Halim, an imam at the Linwood mosque, said on Saturday that the massacre hadn’t shattered his community or its trust in New Zealand.
“We still love this country,” said Halim, who had been leading prayers when Tarrant began killing people outside, then fired into windows. “Extremists would never ever touch our confidence.”
He also praised New Zealanders’ compassion, saying, “They start to . . . give me big hugs, and give me more solidarity.”
Meanwhile, in Australia, a lawmaker facing censure for blaming Muslim immigration for the massacre was egged in the head by a teen while addressing reporters on live TV.
Video shows far-right Sen. Fraser Anning of Queensland smacking the egger, Will Connolly, 17, twice in the face before the teen is tackled by the lawmaker’s security.