New York Post

Fiend’s kin ‘so sorry’

Shock k & pain

- By TAMAR LAPIN tlapin@nypost.com

The family of the white supremacis­t who slaughtere­d 50 people in the New Zealand mosque shootings apologized for his actions on Sunday.

Brenton Tarrant’s uncle Terry Fitzgerald said the carnage his nephew unleashed on two mosques in Christchur­ch on Friday was “just not right.”

“We are so sorry for the families . . . for the dead and the injured,” Fitzgerald told Australian broadcaste­r 9News. “Yeah, we just can’t think nothing else, just want to go home and hide.”

The Australian mass shooter’s 81-year-old grandmothe­r, Marie Fitzgerald, said from her home in New South Wales that the family is at a loss.

“We’re all gobsmacked,” she said. “It’s just so much for everything to take in that somebody in our family would do anything like this.”

She said that her grandson spent a lot of his youth playing computer games and browsing the Internet and that she didn’t think “girlfriend­s were on the agenda.”

Marie Fitzgerald noted that his father died from cancer in 2010 and also cited Tarrant’s travels to Europe.

“It’s only since he traveled overseas that the boy has changed completely,” she said.

The last time she saw him was two weeks ago when he returned to his hometown, the eastern Australian city of Grafton, for his sister’s birthday.

“He was just his normal self. We all chatted and had a meal together to celebrate that occasion,” Fitzgerald said, noting authoritie­s believe her grandson had been planning Friday’s attacks for two years.

“Now everybody is just devastated. ‘Shattered’ is the word.”

 ??  ?? ‘GOBSMACKED’: Terry and Marie Fitzgerald, the uncle and grandmothe­r of Brenton Tarrant (inset), express their disbelief and sorrow over the terrorist’s assault in an interview on Sunday.
‘GOBSMACKED’: Terry and Marie Fitzgerald, the uncle and grandmothe­r of Brenton Tarrant (inset), express their disbelief and sorrow over the terrorist’s assault in an interview on Sunday.
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