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WELLINGTON: A report on the Christchurch mosque massacre last year said that New Zealand’s security agencies were “almost exclusively” focused on the threat of Islamist terrorism, and that the police had not enforced adequate controls on the firearms licenses.
The nearly 800-page Royal Commission of Inquiry report released on Tuesday (December 8) shows that the attacker, Brenton Tarrant, kept a low profile and did not tell anyone about his plans.
It concludes that despite the shortcomings of various agencies, there were no clear signs that the attack was imminent, aside from the manifesto that Tarrant sent out just eight minutes before firing, which came too late for the agencies to respond.
READ: New Zealand’s Ardern vows responsibility ahead of Christchurch attack report
“The commission did not conclude that these problems would have stopped the attack. But both were flaws and for that I apologize,” Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said in a statement after the report was released.
Among the 44 recommendations, the report says the government should establish a new national intelligence agency.
New Zealand currently has an intelligence agency that focuses on domestic threats and another that focuses on international threats. Often times, those agencies focus on immediate events, such as keeping visiting dignitaries safe.
The report recommends establishing a new well-funded intelligence and security agency that is more strategic in nature and can focus on emerging threats and develop a counter-terrorism strategy.
Ardern said the government agreed to implement all the recommendations and apologized for the agency’s shortcomings.
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Tarrant, who is Australian, was sentenced in August to life in prison without the possibility of parole after pleading guilty to 92 counts of terrorism, murder and attempted murder.
The report details Tarrant’s extensive world travels, but also shows that he had almost no meaningful interactions with the people of New Zealand because he was an introvert and did not work.
As a child, Tarrant had unsupervised access to the Internet and was interested in video games from the age of six or seven, the report says. He started expressing racist ideas from a young age and told his mother that he started using the 4chan internet forum since he was 14 years old.
He put on a lot of weight in his teens before he began compulsively exercising in gyms and going on a diet, losing about 50 kg.
His father Rodney was diagnosed with lung cancer caused by asbestos exposure and in 2010 he committed suicide at home, leaving an inheritance of A $ 457,000 (US $ 339,000) to Tarrant.
The gunman worked for about three years as a personal trainer at a gym in the Australian city of Grafton, but stopped working after an injury and later used his inheritance to live and travel. He visited dozens of countries around the world, including India, China, Russia, North Korea, and many countries in Africa and Europe.
He moved to New Zealand in 2017 and focused on planning his attack. The report says he only had superficial interactions with people at a gym and the rifle club where he practiced rapid shooting. However, when necessary, Tarrant could introduce himself to others in a way that did not arouse suspicion.
Tarrant told investigators that although he frequented far-right discussion forums on websites like 4chan and 8chan, he found YouTube a much more important source of information and inspiration.
Ardern said he planned to speak to YouTube leaders “directly” about how the gunman had been inspired by the site’s videos.
In 2018, Tarrant was treated at Dunedin Hospital for injuries to his right eye and thigh after telling doctors he accidentally fired a gun while cleaning it in his apartment, the report says.
He obtained compensation from the government for his injury, which was not reported to the police. The hospital recorder said the accident appeared to be careless and “a little unusual” but did not otherwise set off alarms.
Health authorities also wrote that Tarrant was taking illicit steroids and injecting testosterone after being treated for abdominal pain, but they also did not inform the police.
As part of the process to obtain a gun license, Tarrant was required to provide the police with the names of two referees who could speak to his good character. He gave them the name of a friend he knew primarily online from playing together, along with that friend’s father. The verification officers interviewed Tarrant and the referees, and recommended that they give him his license.
Police Commissioner Andrew Coster said that in deciding whether Tarrant was “fit and proper” to have a gun license, “we could have done more to consider whether the two umpires knew the individual well enough to serve as umpires.”
The report also found that New Zealand’s Security Intelligence Service, the national spy agency, had chosen to focus scarce counterterrorism resources on the threat of extremist Islamist terrorism inspired by groups like the Islamic State at the expense of other threats.
Despite the shortcomings of various agencies, the report concludes, there was no plausible way to detect Tarrant’s plans “except by chance.”
