A white supremacist who killed 51 people at two New Zealand mosques has lost his bid to overturn his convictions and sentence.
Brenton Tarrant is serving a life sentence with no parole after admitting to the murders and trying to kill another 40 worshippers in the March 2019 attack in Christchurch.
During a week-long hearing in February, Tarrant, now 35, argued he was incapable of making rational decisions at the time of his plea because of “torturous and inhumane” conditions in prison. He also launched an appeal against his sentence.
New Zealand’s Court of Appeal rejected his bid on Thursday, ruling that his arguments were “utterly devoid of merit”.
The facts around Tarrant’s crimes are “beyond dispute”, the panel of three judges said in a unanimous decision.
In his appeal, Tarrant claimed he made the guilty pleas while he was “irrational” and under a poor mental state.
The judges found his claims inconsistent and not supported by other witnesses, concluding that he was not “coerced or pressured in any way” to plead guilty.
“He has not identified any arguable defence, or indeed any defence known to the law. We have also rejected his claim that his guilty pleas were the product of him having an irrational state of mind induced by his prison conditions,” they said on Thursday.
The massacre at Al Noor mosque and Linwood Islamic Centre, parts of which were live-streamed, led to stricter gun laws in New Zealand.