Jacinda Ardern to appoint a new minister to look into Christchurch shooting report

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said that the country will be appointing a new minister for an extensive inquiry into the 2019 Christchurch mosque shootings. According to the reports by The Guardian, Ardern visited the survivors and families of those who were killed and she said that the government will be providing a “very initial response” to the findings after the report’s release.

Termed as the worst-ever terror attack in New Zealand, a gunman carried out indiscriminate shootings at two mosques in Christchurch during the Friday prayers, leaving 49 people dead and at least 48 wounded, besides giving a scare to the Bangladesh cricket team which had a narrow escape. Jacinda Ardern said the events in Christchurch represented "an extraordinary and unprecedented act of violence" and acknowledged many of those affected may be migrants and refugees. "It is clear that this can now only be described as a terrorist attack," Ardern said. 

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Tarrant 'unlikely' to be returned to Australia 

Recently, Ardern said that Christchurch mosque killer, Brenton Tarrant, is ‘unlikely’ to be returned to his homeland of Australia. While speaking to Sky News, Ardern said that talks between the two countries aren’t over, however, early suggestions are that victims’ families wish to see that Tarrant’s sentence is served in New Zealand. The Australian mass murderer was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole in August and since his sentencing, it has been debated over whether the 29-year-old could ever conceivably be deported back to his native land. 

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Tarrant was sentenced to life without parole for the attacks. He had pleaded guilty to 51 murders, 40 attempted murders and one charge of committing a terrorist act when he went on a shooting rampage at two mosques in Christchurch and live-streamed it on Facebook. However, he was sentenced with the maximum available sentence used for the first time in New Zealand. 

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Tarrant is a former gym instructor from the rural New South Wales town of Grafton. He moved to New Zealand in 2017 and immediately started planning an attack on the country’s Muslim community. It was noted that even though Australia and New Zealand have close visa arrangements, they still do not have a prisoner transfer deal, which created a hurdle to any near-term change in Tarrant’s imprisonment.

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(Image Credits: AP)