Indian intelligence officials said Tuesday they will investigate the three-month stay in India of Christchurch mosque shooter Brenton Tarrant in 2019. The agencies will try to learn the places he visited and the people he met, the officials said on condition of anonymity.
According to a full 792-page report from the New Zealand Royal Commission of Inquiry released on Tuesday, the Australian-born attacker was in India between November 21, 2015 and February 18, 2016. HT has seen the report.
The report added that Tarrant traveled extensively, always alone, between April 15, 2014 and August 17, 2017, to various countries before moving to New Zealand. In total, the research report lists 57 countries spread across Asia, the majority in Europe and Africa, where he traveled during these three years.
He arrived in India on November 21, 2015, immediately after finishing his 23-day trip to Nepal.
In fact, his longest stay was in India during these three years. “The longest visit the individual (Tarrant) made to any country was to India, where he stayed between November 21, 2015 and February 18, 2016,” the report says. He visited various countries for about a month or more, including Japan, Thailand, Vietnam, South Korea, Myanmar, Russia, Serbia, Croatia, and Slovenia, among others.
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A senior Indian counterterrorism official said they will ask about the cities he visited, the people he came in contact with or stayed with. “We will seek information from the regional FRROs (Regional Foreigners Registration Offices) about your trip to India,” said this official.
He added: “There is no formal investigation or investigation in India as of now. We will analyze your trip based on the report of the Royal Investigation Commission. If necessary later, we can request further input from the New Zealand authorities. ”
The report says that “while extremist groups (including violent extremists) can be found in some of the countries that the individual (Tarrant) visited, there is no evidence that he met with them.”
“Similarly, there is no evidence that he participated in training or investigated possible targets,” the report notes.
Tarrant, 30, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in August this year after pleading guilty to 92 counts of terrorism, murder and attempted murder for killing 51 Muslim worshipers, including five Indians, in two mosques. during Friday prayers in Christchurch. March 15, 2019.
The report says that Tarrant lived on money he had received from his father and income from investments made with him. “With his father’s money, the individual traveled a lot. First, in 2013, he explored New Zealand and Australia and then, between 2014 and 2017, he traveled extensively around the world, ”he said.
The Royal Commission has concluded that when Tarrant moved to New Zealand in August 2017, it was with a fully developed terrorist ideology based on his adoption of the Great Replacement theory and its associated beliefs that immigration, particularly of Muslim immigrants, in Western countries is an existential threat to Western society and that the appropriate response (at least for him) was violence.
However, he adds that the purpose of the trip was not to meet with far-right individuals or groups or to participate in training activities or recognition of potential targets. “In short, he traveled a lot because he could and had nothing better to do,” he said.
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