October 27, 1990 - Brenton Tarrant
The Christchurch mosque shootings stand as the deadliest act of terrorism in New Zealand's modern history, and the deliberate live-streaming of the attack represented a calculated attempt to amplify harm beyond the physical site — a tactic that influenced subsequent far-right violence internationally. Tarrant's use of an online manifesto and social media broadcast marked a documented shift in how mass-casualty extremism is staged and disseminated. The sentence handed down was unprecedented in New Zealand's legal history.
From Wikipedia
On 15 March 2019, two consecutive terrorist mass shootings took place in Christchurch, New Zealand. They were committed during Friday prayer, first at the Al Noor Mosque in Riccarton, at 1:40 p.m. and almost immediately afterwards at the Linwood Islamic Centre at 1:52 p.m. Altogether, 51 people were killed and 89 others were injured, including 40 by gunfire. The perpetrator was an Australian man, Brenton Tarrant, then aged 28.
Tarrant was arrested after his vehicle was rammed by a police car as he was driving to a third mosque in Ashburton. He live-streamed the first shooting on Facebook, marking the first successfully live-streamed far-right terror attack, and had published a manifesto online before the attack. On 26 March 2020, he pleaded guilty to 51 murders, 40 attempted murders, and engaging in a terrorist act, and in August was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole – the first such sentence in New Zealand.
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