The White supremacist who shot and killed 51 Muslims at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, lost an attempt to abandon his guilty pleas in a Court of Appeal ruling Thursday.
The panel of three judges dismissed Brenton Tarrant’s claim that harsh prison conditions prompted his admission to the terrorism, murder and attempted murder charges he faced.
The Australian man, who is now 35, murdered 51 worshippers and injured dozens more in March 2019 when he drove to two Christchurch mosques and opened fire with semiautomatic weapons during Friday prayers.
Tarrant’s guilty pleas in March 2020 brought relief to bereaved families and survivors of the attack, who dreaded the prospect of a lengthy trial and feared he would use it to air his hateful views.
The failure of his appeal bid — which the court noted was made 505 days after the legal deadline for it to be filed — means such a trial has again been averted.
Mental illness claim rejected
The judges concluded that his claims of mental illness were inconsistent and weren’t supported by prison staff, mental health professionals or lawyers who had earlier represented him.
“He was not suffering from a mental impairment or any other form of mental incapacity which rendered him unable to voluntarily change his pleas to guilty,” the judges wrote in Thursday’s ruling.
“He endeavoured to mislead us about his state of mind in a weak attempt to advance an appeal in circumstances where all other evidence demonstrated that he made an informed and totally rational decision to plead guilty.”
