Shafaqna English–Christchurch Mosque Mass Killer lost an appeal seeking to overturn his conviction.
The Australian white supremacist killer lost the appeal to overturn his conviction and sentence for shooting dead 51 people at two New Zealand mosques in 2019, court documents show.
New Zealand’s Court of Appeal denied Tarrant’s appeal on Thursday, ruling that his attempt to overturn his guilty plea for the country’s deadliest mass shooting was “utterly devoid of merit”.
The 35-year-old had admitted to carrying out the mass shooting before being sentenced to life in prison in August 2020.
Tarrant appealed in February, claiming that “torturous and inhumane” detention conditions during his trial made him incapable of making rational decisions when he pleaded guilty to 51 charges of murder, 40 counts of attempted murder and one charge of committing a terrorist attack over the 2019 mass shooting.
Local media outlet The Post reported that the three-judge panel, in their ruling released on Thursday, said that they had taken two lines of enquiry, one on Tarrant’s state of mind at the time of his guilty plea and whether his pleas were voluntary.
The judges said the court did “not accept Mr Tarrant’s evidence about his mental state”.
“There were inconsistencies in Mr Tarrant’s own evidence, and his evidence is at odds with the detailed observations of prison authorities and the assessments of mental health professionals at the time of him entering his pleas,” the judges said.
The judges found that Tarrant’s guilty pleas were voluntary, and “he was not coerced or pressured in any way to plead guilty”.
“The evidence overwhelmingly demonstrates that he was not suffering any significant psychological impacts as a result of his prison conditions at the time he pleaded guilty,” the court said.
“The facts concerning Mr Tarrant’s offending are beyond dispute. He has not identified any arguable defense, or indeed any defense known to the law.”
Source: IQNA