By Renju Jose
Feb 9 (Reuters) – A white supremacist who killed 51 Muslim worshipers at two mosques in New Zealand seven years ago said on Monday he was irrational when he pleaded guilty, local media reported, as he sought to overturn his conviction in a New Zealand court.
Brenton Tarrant, 35, who appeared in court in Wellington via video link, is seeking to appeal his guilty pleas.
Tarrant, an Australian citizen, opened fire on two mosques in Christchurch in March 2019 during Friday prayers in the deadliest mass shooting in New Zealand’s history. He released a racist manifesto shortly before the attack, using military-style semi-automatic weapons and broadcasting the killing on Facebook with a head-mounted camera.
Tarrant initially denied all charges and was preparing to stand trial after the attack but pleaded guilty a year later to 51 counts of murder, 40 counts of attempted murder and one count of committing an act of terrorism.
Tarrant told the court that the harsh prison conditions had deteriorated his mental health while he was awaiting trial, and that he was essentially unfit to plead guilty, according to a report in the New Zealand Herald.
“I didn’t have the frame of mind or the mental strength to make informed decisions at the time,” Tarrant said.
“I think the issue is, did I really know what I wanted to do or what would be a good idea? No, I actually wasn’t… I was making choices, but they weren’t voluntarily made choices and they weren’t rationally made choices because of the (prison) conditions.”
The lawyers acting for Tarrant have their names and identities suppressed by court order and could not be reached for comment.
A court document showed that the Court of Appeal would check whether Tarrant was capable of making rational decisions when he entered his guilty pleas “as a result of the conditions of his imprisonment, which he says were torturous and inhumane”.
He is serving a life sentence without parole – the first time a New Zealand court has imposed a sentence requiring a person to spend the rest of their life in prison.
The hearing of the appeal is set for five days, and is expected to end on Friday.
If the appeal court refuses to entertain the application to leave the guilty pleas, a hearing later in the year will consider the appeal on his sentence. If the appeal is accepted, the case will be sent back to the High Court for Tarrant to stand trial on the charges.
(Reporting by Jose Kingdom in Sydney; Editing by Lincoln Feast.)