Brenton Tarrant, the 28-year-old Australian suspect charged with murder in Friday's mass shooting in New Zealand, expressed admiration for convicted killers Dylann Roof and Anders Breivik in an apparent manifesto posted online.
Brenton Tarrant, the 28-year-old Australian suspect charged with murder in Friday's mass shooting in New Zealand, expressed admiration for convicted killers Dylann Roof and Anders Breivik in an apparent manifesto posted online.
The document, titled "The Great Replacement," was posted on Twitter ahead of the killings, which claimed the lives of 49 at two different mosques in Christchurch. It was also sent to various media outlets.
In the lengthy text, Tarrant complains about "white genocide" and praises Roof, the American white supremacist who killed nine African-Americans at a church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015, as well as Breivik, a Norwegian far-right terrorist who killed 77 in Oslo and on the island of Utoya in 2011.
“I support many of those that take a stand against ethnic and cultural genocide," the manifesto reads.
Tarrant also scrawled names on his magazines before he unleashed the hail of gunfire on unsuspecting worshippers. One of them? Alexandre Bissonnette, who killed six at a mosque in Quebec City in 2017.
The nearly 50 dead is higher than the total number of murders in New Zealand in 2017. Reporter Emma O'Sullivan, who works for 10 News First in Melbourne, told Inside Edition that the country is not accustomed to such bloodshed.
"Many people are extremely shocked," she said. "This is normally a very peaceful country. There's normally not religious violence here."
Tarrant is expected to appear in court Saturday local time. Police have detained three others in connection with the attack as well.
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