Source: Radio New Zealand
Al Noor Mosque where 51 people were killed in a terrorist attack in 2019. RNZ / Nate McKinnon
A forensic psychologist has called into question a report prepared for the white supremacist who massacred 51 worshippers at two Christchurch mosques.
Australian Brenton Tarrant is serving life imprisonment without parole for the March 2019 shootings at Christchurch’s Al Noor Mosque and Linwood Islamic Centre.
The 35-year-old now claims he pleaded guilty only because he was irrational due to the solitary nature of his prison conditions.
He is seeking to overturn his convictions and sentence at the Court of Appeal.
On Monday, a psychologist, whose name is suppressed and is only known as Witness B, told the court the prison conditions affected the terrorist’s mental health.
The psychologist said the conditions were onerous and would have affected anyone’s mental health.
On Wednesday, forensic psychologist Professor James Ogloff, Dean of Health Sciences at Swinburne University in Melbourne, questioned the conclusions of that psychologist.
The terrorist was not subjected to deprivation or torture in prison, Ogloff told the court.
Ogloff said he believed when the terrorist spoke with Witness B he might have been consciously exaggerating the distress he claimed to be under at the time he pleaded guilty.
The terrorist’s argument for setting aside his guilty pleas was he claimed he was incapable of making a rational decision at the time because of the torturous and inhumane prison conditions.
A psychologist and a psychiatrist assessed the terrorist before his sentencing in August 2020. Both concluded he was fit to plea at that time.
Ogloff said he had no reason to call into question those assessments.
However, Witness B’s report appeared to reach the opposite conclusion and Witness B based much of his thinking on speaking to the terrorist several years after the time in question, Ogloff said.
When giving evidence on Monday, Witness B had tried to minimise his disagreement with the earlier assessments and appeared to back down from many of his report’s points, Ogloff said.
The terrorist was housed in the prisoners of extreme risk unit in Auckland Prison.
He was cut off from meaningful interaction with other people, including fellow prisoners.
Ogloff said he was not claiming the prison conditions were positive, but nor were they so harsh that severe mental deterioration was inevitable.
On Tuesday, the court heard from the two lawyers who represented the terrorist from late March 2019 until July 2020.
The pair presented an image of a man who was concerned with the attention he received in the outside world, who wanted to control the aspects of his legal proceedings he could, and who was often dismissive of his lawyer’s advice.
The terrorist had indicated to his lawyers he wanted to plead guilty in late July 2019 before again changing his mind several days later.
He finally pleaded guilty in March 2020 but the process was rushed.
However, both lawyers told the court the terrorist had indicated he would always plead guilty but he wanted to control when that happened.
Neither had any concerns about his fitness to provide instruction or to plea.
The court will hear evidence from the final witnesses on Wednesday afternoon before legal arguments on Thursday and Friday.
If the terrorist is successful, his guilty pleas will be overturned and he will stand trial in the High Court.
If he is unsuccessful, an appeal of his sentence will be heard, likely later this year.
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand