Source: Radio New Zealand
March 2019 massacres happened at Christchurch’s Al Noor Mosque and Linwood Islamic Centre. RNZ / Nate McKinnon
The Australian white supremacist who massacred 51 worshippers at two Christchurch mosques was pleased to be charged with committing terrorism, the Court of Appeal has heard.
Convicted murderer and terrorist Brenton Tarrant made the admission to one of his lawyers after being advised of the charge in May 2019.
The 35-year-old wants to vacate his guilty pleas for the 15 March 2019 terror attacks at Al Noor Mosque and Linwood Islamic Centre and stand trial instead.
In March 2020, the gunman pleaded guilty at the High Court to 51 counts of murder, 40 of attempted murder and one of committing a terrorist act.
He was jailed for life without parole in August 2020.
The terrorist’s former lawyers Jonathan Hudson and Shane Tait, who represented him from late March 2019 until July 2020, gave evidence at a Court of Appeal hearing in Wellington on Tuesday morning.
Lawyers representing the terrorist at the Court of Appeal have name suppression.
During an exchange with a lawyer known only as counsel B, Hudson said the terrorist gave surprising responses to being advised of a 51st charge of murder and a charge of terrorism being laid against him.
Hudson’s affidavit described an “extremely unusual response” to the final murder charge.
“It wasn’t the response I had expected,” Hudson told the court, although he did not elaborate.
Hudson also detailed the gunman’s response to being advised of the terrorism charge in late May 2019.
“He was pleased,” he said.
“He wanted to be described as a terrorist.”
Hudson told the court the terrorist expressed a willingness to immediately plead guilty to the charge of terrorism, while at the same time maintaining a desire to plead not guilty to the murder and attempted murder charges.
The terrorist pleaded not guilty to all charges in June 2019 and contacted Hudson on 31 July 2019 when he expressed a desire to plead guilty.
Hudson said the terrorist’s change of heart came as a surprise.
Two days later Hudson met the terrorist in prison and read a letter outlining the pleas and the case against him.
There was no change in the terrorist’s demeanour, Hudson said.
Four days later the terrorist had another change of heart shortly before he was due to formally enter his pleas in court.
Hudson received the news via a phone call from the terrorist.
“We only had 20 minutes before the scheduled teleconference with the judge,” Hudson told the court.
“I went to visit him at the prison afterwards to confirm his instructions.”
Guilty plea
Asked by counsel B if he found the terrorist’s changing mind to be “illogical or irrational”, Hudson said he attributed it to “the seriousness of the punishment he faced if he went through with the guilty plea”.
Hudson had made the terrorist aware he faced life imprisonment without parole regardless of whether he pleaded guilty or not.
Tait and Hudson told the court the terrorist always intended to plead guilty.
“He was consistent that he was going to plead guilty but he was inconsistent as to when he would plead guilty,” Hudson said.
Tait said he advised the terrorist he had no defence in law, the evidence against him was overwhelming and he accepted that advice and intended to plead guilty.
He said the terrorist had raised wanting to claim he was defending New Zealand from overpopulation from migrant communities.
“I made it clear that defence was not available to him,” Tait said.
Tait advised the terrorist that there was a possible defence to the terrorism charge because no-one had been convicted of the offence at the time.
“To be clear Mr Tarrant never wanted to defend the terrorism charge. It was something he wanted to be convicted of,” he said.
Tait and Hudson continued preparing for trial on the basis it might proceed.
As part of their preparation, Tait advised the terrorist to seek a change in venue for trial.
That application was quite advanced before the terrorist abandoned it, although Tait was not surprised.
“It was just another attempt for him to try to control the proceedings,” he told the court.
“I wasn’t surprised. I wasn’t happy but I envisaged he may attempt to do something like that.
“His explanation is he didn’t want to be seen to be running away from the trauma he had caused the community.”
Tarrant’s extreme ideology seemed to be “more important to him than any idea of fair trial rights”, Tait said.
The court heard the terrorist had regularly ignored the advice of his lawyers, including in his desire to give a statement to the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the attack.
The terrorist gave evidence to the court on Monday, in his first public remarks since the 2019 mass shooting.
During his evidence he claimed he always intended on dismissing his lawyers, going to trial and representing himself.
He felt “forced” to plead guilty in March 2020 because of his deteriorating mental state and his fear he would make a fool of himself at trial.
His argument for vacating his guilty pleas amounted to the terrorist claiming he was incapable of making a rational decision at the time because of the solitary nature of confinement.
Hudson and Tait disputed the terrorist’s claim he had raised dismissing them.
Tait said the terrorist had only ever discussed representing himself at sentencing.
Tait recalled regularly pressing the terrorist for an arguable defence to take to trial and the terrorist made clear he was going to plead guilty, it was just a matter of when.
“Brenton what am I going to tell a jury?,” Tait recalled asking the terrorist.
“Don’t worry, it won’t get to that,” he said the terrorist would respond.
The terrorist, who is housed in the specialist prisoners of extreme risk unit at Auckland Prison, told the court on Monday any remorse he had expressed before his August 2020 sentencing was because of his isolation and poor mental state.
“I did express some remorse. I would now say that was induced by the prison conditions, I was irrational,” the terrorist told the court.
“It was actually real but it was induced by the prison conditions inducing the irrationality.”
The hearing is set down for five days.
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
