New Zealand has released an almost 800-page report into the March 2019 killing of 51 Muslim worshippers at two mosques in the city of Christchurch.
The Royal Commission of Inquiry report concluded that, while intelligence services had directed their efforts away from investigating right-wing threats and instead focused heavily on the \u201cthreat of Islamist extremist\u201d activity, they could not have been alerted of an imminent attack.
The report, released Tuesday, took issue with Christchurch authorities for deploying \u201can inappropriate concentration of resources\u201d on \u201cother terrorism threats\u201d in the country, distracting them from threats such as that posed by white supremacists.
However, the report said, \u201cNo single aspect of it [information available to authorities] could have alerted public sector agencies to an impending terrorist attack.\u201d
In hindsight, while there were circumstances that could be linked to the Australian attacker\u2019s plan, the signs were too \u201cfragmentary\u201d and it was difficult to put together to establish evidence that merit immediate action, it said.
The inquiry was formed to look into the authorities\u2019 response and to determine whether the attack could have been prevented.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern apologised for the government\u2019s shortcomings, saying: \u201cWhile the commission made no findings that these issues would have stopped the attack, these were failings nonetheless and, for that, on behalf of the government I apologise.
\u201cUltimately, this roughly 800-page report can be distilled into one simple premise: Muslim New Zealanders should be safe. \u201cMuslim New Zealanders should be safe. Anyone who calls New Zealand home, regardless of race, religion, sex or sexual orientation should be safe,\u201d Ardern said following the release of the report.
Brenton Tarrant, who had expressed white supremacist and anti-Muslim views before the killings, carried out the attack in 2019 and live-streamed it on social media.
He was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole earlier this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Large cache of firearms New Zealand has released an almost 800-page report into the March 2019 killing of 51 Muslim worshippers at two mosques in the city of Christchurch.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":11566,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c102-muslim-minorities"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
<\/strong>The report said that more than a year before the attack, the attacker was found to have shown \u201challmarks of steroid overuse\u201d and had not shown any interest in giving up the use of testosterone.
In July 2018, the gunman had also injured his right eye and thigh in a firearm accident at his home.
By then, he had already been practising shooting with a large cache of firearms. It was during that time that he had injured himself when his firearm malfunctioned and jammed, the report said.
He reportedly sought treatment at the hospital in Dunedin, but officials at the hospital failed to alert the police about it.
None of those events, however, could have established that he was plotting an attack, or that he was already amassing weapons, according to the inquiry\u2019s findings.
Al Jazeera\u2019s Wayne Hay, reporting from Christchurch, said the \u201coverriding\u201d sentiment of the Muslim community is acceptance and support of the 44 recommendations listed to promote more safety.
But at the same time, there were also some who felt that \u201cnot enough was said\u201d in the report, about how complaints of the Muslim community were overlooked.
Ardern had promised \u201caccountability\u201d for the families of the victims and survivors but said some recommendations may take time to implement.
\u201cI absolutely appreciate the community will want to see accountability in terms of implementation. They will want to see who is responsible for coordinating some of those efforts \u2026 and we will be providing that,\u201d Ardern told a regular media briefing.
The report took about 18 months to finish and contains interviews with hundreds of people including security agencies, Muslim community leaders, international experts and officials in England, Norway and Australia, as well as with Ardern.
Ardern received global praise for her compassionate response to the attack. She swiftly banned the sale of high-capacity semi-automatic weapons similar to those used in the attack and launched a global movement against online hard-line views.
However, authorities were criticised for ignoring repeated warnings from the Muslim community that hate crimes against them were escalating, and that security agencies were failing to record such crimes.
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