UNFORGIVABLE
BY MARTIN FRICKER EVIL gunman Brenton Tarrant looks calm and unemotional as he listens in court to the distraught families of his mosque massacre victims.
The 29-year-old is due to be sentenced for slaughtering 51 Muslim worshippers and trying to murder 40 others in New Zealand last year.
He is expected to become the first person in the country’s history to get a life sentence with no chance of parole.
Tarrant has admitted carrying out the attacks at two mosques in Christchurch, while he live-streamed it on Facebook.
Snipers were positioned on the roof of the High Court in the city as the four-day hearing began.
The Australian white supremacist was dressed in a grey prison-issued tracksuit and flanked by three police officers. He remained silent as relatives of victims told the court how his actions affected them.
Maysoon Salama, whose son Atta Elayyan, 33, was killed, told him: “You thought you could break us but you failed miserably. We became more determined and united than ever. Atta is gone but he will never be forgotten. I can’t forgive you.
“You gave yourself the authority to take the souls of 51 people. Our only crime in your eyes is that we are Muslims. You killed your own humanity and I don’t think the world will forgive you for your horrible crime. May you get the severest punishment for your evil act in this life, and hereafter.”
Gamal Fouda, imam of the Al Noor mosque which Tarrant attacked first, told him he was “misguided and misled”. He described seeing the “hate in the
eyes of a brainwashed terrorist”.
Tarrant’s headcam of his killing spree
Mother Maysoon Salama, sitting, tells court of family loss
MAYASOON SALAMA WHOSE SON ATTA ELAYYAN WAS AMONG THOSE KILLED