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Speaker 1: True Crime Conversations acknowledges the traditional owners of land and

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Speaker 1: waters that this podcast was recorded on. It's a Friday

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Speaker 1: afternoon in the New Zealand city of Christchurch. Families are

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Speaker 1: exchanging warm greetings at the Alnor Mosque while their children

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Speaker 1: laugh and play in the foyer. Today, around one hundred

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Speaker 1: and ninety worshippers have gathered preparing to kneel for Jimua,

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Speaker 1: the most sacred prayer of the Muslim week. The atmosphere

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Speaker 1: is peaceful, it's serene. Few could have imagined just how

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Speaker 1: quickly that peace would descend into unspeakable horror. Just outside,

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Speaker 1: on the quiet suburban road, a man pulls into the

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Speaker 1: driveway next to the mosque. He's alone, dressed in camouflage

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Speaker 1: and a tactical vest with ammunition magazines strapped to his waist.

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Speaker 2: He'd also attached.

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Speaker 1: A go pro camera to his helmet, and from that

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Speaker 1: he would start streaming live on Facebook. Hello, lads, he says,

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Speaker 1: let's get this party started.

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Speaker 2: You can see his.

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Speaker 1: Hands on the wheel before he turns to the passenger seat.

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Speaker 1: On it is sitting several guns. They're marked with white lettering.

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Speaker 1: Now these words wouldn't make much sense to those of

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Speaker 1: us who can't read syrillic script, but for the families

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Speaker 1: of people who'd survived a genocide in Europe decades before,

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Speaker 1: it would be a shock. In the boot of the car,

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Speaker 1: next to some plastic shopping bags and some red fuel cans,

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Speaker 1: sits yet more guns. You see him reach for a

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Speaker 1: bluetooth speaker, pressing buttons to start playing a song, and

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Speaker 1: the jaunty accordion music that then filters out through the

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Speaker 1: car covers up the darkness of the lyrics. He'd already

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Speaker 1: been listening to several songs on the drive in Serbia,

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Speaker 1: Strong and anti Muslim track and the British Grenadiers, a

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Speaker 1: traditional British military march. At exactly one thirty nine pm,

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Speaker 1: he steps out of the car, heavily armed, and walks

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Speaker 1: towards the mosque. He ignores the three people who walk

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Speaker 1: past him on the street. They aren't his target. Instead,

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Speaker 1: we follow his camo clad gloves holding his rifle around

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Speaker 1: a corner towards the mosque.

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Speaker 2: We watch on as he approaches.

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Speaker 1: The first victim, a worshipper, who greets him with a

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Speaker 1: polite hello, brother. Just as without warning, the man behind

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Speaker 1: the camera raises his shotgun and opens fire, killing four

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Speaker 1: people on the spot. He throws that shotgun to the

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Speaker 1: ground and grabs his semi automatic AR fifteen, killing two

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Speaker 1: more men in the hallway near the entrance. He's attached

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Speaker 1: a strobe light to the gun and it disorientates the victims,

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Speaker 1: so in the main hall, which is packed with worshipers

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Speaker 1: with nowhere to go, he would then mow down dozens

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Speaker 1: of people where they knelt. He shoots at every person

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Speaker 1: he sees, as well as into the side rooms as

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Speaker 1: he passes. Worshippers can be seen scrambling for cover, trying

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Speaker 1: to shield their loved ones, searching for exits as panic

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Speaker 1: tears through the building. Amid the chaos, though there are

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Speaker 1: moments of extraordinary bravery. Naim Rashid ran towards the attacker

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Speaker 1: in a desperate attempt to stop him, an act of

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Speaker 1: courage that would cost him his life and earn him

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Speaker 1: a posthumous bravery award. Just two minutes into the attack,

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Speaker 1: people start calling police. The gunman moves outside. He's still

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Speaker 1: firing off rounds, but he's returned to his car to

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Speaker 1: retrieve another gun. He then heads back through the mosque

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Speaker 1: southern gate, killing two people who've tried to hide behind

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Speaker 1: the cars. He goes back inside the building, shooting dead

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Speaker 1: those he'd previously wounded. After six harrowing minutes, the gunman

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Speaker 1: returns to his car again, and this time he drives away,

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Speaker 1: running over the body of a woman he'd killed as

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Speaker 1: he fires shots out the window at worshipers running from

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Speaker 1: the horror behind his fleeing vehicle. Is a scene of

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Speaker 1: utter chaos. The cries of the wounded would mix in

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Speaker 1: with the sounds of sirens as police finally arrive, not

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Speaker 1: realizing that the car holding the man they wanted to

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Speaker 1: stop was leaving just as they pulled up up, their

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Speaker 1: view of him obscured by a passing bus. But the

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Speaker 1: rampage doesn't end there. Speeding through christ Church's streets at

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Speaker 1: over one hundred and thirty kilometers an hour, weaving through

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Speaker 1: lanes and into oncoming traffic, the government makes his way

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Speaker 1: to the Linwood Islamic Center. Now the live stream ends here.

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Speaker 1: The connection to Facebook interrupted right before the attacker aims

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Speaker 1: a shotgun at the driver of another vehicle, pulling the

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Speaker 1: trigger twice, but it fails to fire both times. While

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Speaker 1: the live stream has ended, the GoPro continues to record,

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Speaker 1: so at one fifty two PM, it captures the very

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Speaker 1: moment he pulls into the driveway outside the Linwood Building,

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Speaker 1: where around one hundred people are beginning their prayers. He

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Speaker 1: blocks the entrance to the car park so no one

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Speaker 1: can leave. He again steps out and opens fire, but

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Speaker 1: unable to initially find the front door, he instead shoots

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Speaker 1: those who are still outside and into the building through

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Speaker 1: the windows as he grabs yet another gun from his car.

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Speaker 1: Abdul Aziz Wahabzadah runs outside and throws a payment terminal

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Speaker 1: at him in an attempt to stop the violence. The

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Speaker 1: gunman fires back but misses. Aziz picks up an empty

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Speaker 1: shotgun that's been thrown to the ground, and taking cover

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Speaker 1: amongst the nearby cars, he yells out his location, attempting

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Speaker 1: to draw the man to him and away from the building.

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Speaker 1: His valiant efforts, however, fail, and the armed man enters

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Speaker 1: the center, shooting and killing three more people. As he

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Speaker 1: emerges from the building, Aziz confronts him again. The man

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Speaker 1: pulls a bayonet from his vest, but instead of attacking Aziz,

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Speaker 1: he returns to his car, and just four minutes.

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Speaker 2: After his arrival drives away.

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Speaker 1: By this stage, police now have a description of the vehicle.

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Speaker 1: The two thousand and five Subaru outback was spotted by

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Speaker 1: a police unit, which then rammed the vehicle off the road.

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Speaker 2: Now the man would later admit there was actually on.

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Speaker 1: His way to his third target, another mosque in Ashburton's

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Speaker 1: southwest of Christchurch. In just thirty six minutes, fifty one

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Speaker 1: people were killed, the oldest victim seventy seven, the youngest

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Speaker 1: just three, as eighty nine others lay wounded in what

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Speaker 1: would become New Zealand's darkest day, a moment of profound

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Speaker 1: grief and loss, witnessed not only by those who were

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Speaker 1: there that day, but by the entire world, all of

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Speaker 1: it live streamed. Thirty six minutes of horror, much of

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Speaker 1: it broadcast in real time, with people watching across the globe.

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Speaker 1: Now some felt helpless as that violence unfolded, desperate but

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Speaker 1: unable to intervene as innocent men, women and children fell

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Speaker 1: to the gunman's bullets, but not all of them. I'm

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Speaker 1: Claire Murphy and this is True Crime Conversations, a podcast

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Speaker 1: exploring the world's most notorious crimes by speaking to the

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Speaker 1: people who know the most about them. When the gunmen

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Speaker 1: arrived in court, he smiled at the collection of journalists

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Speaker 1: sent to cover the case, making an inverted okay gesture

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Speaker 1: with his hand, said to be a symbol for white supremacy.

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Speaker 2: Over the course of his trial, where he was.

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Speaker 1: Charged with fifty one counts of murder, forty of attempted murder,

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Speaker 1: and engaging in a terrorist act, a psychiatric assessment would

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Speaker 1: find he was of sound mind. He sent seven letters

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Speaker 1: during this time, one of them, addressed to Allan in Russia,

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Speaker 1: ended up posted on both the four chan and eight

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Speaker 1: chan websites. The six page letter, written in pencil on

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Speaker 1: a small notepad, mainly speaks of memories of his trip

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Speaker 1: to Russia in twenty fifteen, thanking his supporter for the

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Speaker 1: postage stamps he'd sent in order for him to be

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Speaker 1: able to correspond with him. He admits he can't go

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Speaker 1: into any detail about any regrets or feelings he has

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Speaker 1: about his situation, as the guards would just confiscate the letter,

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Speaker 1: but it ended with a statement that a great conflict

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Speaker 1: was and used language that could be raided as inciting

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Speaker 1: his supporters to violence. He would at one stage dismiss

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Speaker 1: his lawyers, deciding to represent himself and pleading guilty to

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Speaker 1: all ninety two charges. His sentencing was televised, the judge

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Speaker 1: informing him that he would be sentenced to life in

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Speaker 1: prison without the possibility of parole, New Zealand's first ever

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Speaker 1: terrorism conviction, Justice Cameron Mander told the gunmen that his

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Speaker 1: crimes were so wicked that even if he was detained

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Speaker 1: until he died, it would not exhaust the requirements of

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Speaker 1: punishment and denunciation. The gunman lodged an appeal against his

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Speaker 1: conviction and sentencing in November twenty twenty two. But what

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Speaker 1: really motivated this Australian man to move to New Zealand

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Speaker 1: and commit this hate field crime is the story of

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Speaker 1: a lone wolf, a solo operator who'd been radicalized online,

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Speaker 1: A man who'd been so corrupted that his anger and

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Speaker 1: violence finally spilled over into the real world.

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Speaker 2: Really true.

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Speaker 1: As the host of the Secrets We Keep Lone Actor podcast,

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Speaker 1: Joey Watson found out, the christ Church terrorist was far.

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Speaker 2: From being alone.

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Speaker 1: What we didn't know as he took those guns and

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Speaker 1: walked through those spaces held sacred by the Muslim community

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Speaker 1: of christ Church, he actually had hundreds of people with him.

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Speaker 1: Joey joins us now to talk about what he found

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Speaker 1: as he traced the movements of the christ Church terrorist

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Speaker 1: in the years before he ever stepped foot.

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Speaker 2: On New Zealand soil.

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Speaker 1: Joey, thanks so much for joining us on True Crime

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Speaker 1: Conversations today. Your podcast is like chasing a ghost through

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Speaker 1: the internet, and it's really interesting to see what you

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Speaker 1: uncover as you try and track the final years and

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Speaker 1: months leading up to the christ Church terror attack in

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Speaker 1: twenty nineteen. I wanted to kick off with a question

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Speaker 1: that you seem to struggle with you yourself at the

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Speaker 1: start of all of this, which is and we up

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Speaker 1: to this point haven't mentioned the name of the terrorist yet,

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Speaker 1: and it's something that we have to question because how

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Speaker 1: much do you shine a light on someone who obviously

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Speaker 1: wanted to be in the spotlight for this particular purpose,

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Speaker 1: which is a mass shooting. But then how do you

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Speaker 1: discuss the story without saying his name at the same time,

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Speaker 1: how did you find that line between telling that story

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Speaker 1: and glorifying the man who did this terrible.

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Speaker 3: Thing in terms of naming him? I mean, I think

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Speaker 3: it sort of asks an even broader question around you

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Speaker 3: know why this story was worth doing, and whether it was,

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Speaker 3: and what decisions we made along the way to make

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Speaker 3: sure at every stage we tried to do it as

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Speaker 3: responsibly as possible, because you always run the risk of

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Speaker 3: amplifying terrorism. When christ Church happened, it was a day

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Speaker 3: that brought home this threat of right wing extremist terrorism

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Speaker 3: in the most unimaginedly tragic and horrible way. It happened

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Speaker 3: in a part of the world that no one could

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Speaker 3: have expected by someone in an Australia, the young Australian

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Speaker 3: guy from regional New South Wales, who you know, you

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Speaker 3: would never have expected to have committed something like that.

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Speaker 3: But very soon after it sort of seemed to disappear

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Speaker 3: from public view, I wanted to show to an Australian

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Speaker 3: audience that there was actually a lot more going on

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Speaker 3: here and we can't just kind of conveniently explain it

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Speaker 3: away as this loan hate field loaner. Soon after that

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Speaker 3: I sort of started speaking to members of the victim community,

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Speaker 3: and the victim community I found also, even though of

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Speaker 3: course there's a lot of diversity within the victim community

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Speaker 3: and within families about how this should be remembered and

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Speaker 3: how it should be contended with, but certainly that they

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Speaker 3: also had a lot of very important questions and felt

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Speaker 3: that there were things missing in terms of understanding how

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Speaker 3: this attack had come to be. And so that was

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Speaker 3: very much the spirit through which I engaged with this investigation.

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Speaker 3: The questions that I wanted to answer were the questions

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Speaker 3: of researchers that had been looking at this space for years,

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Speaker 3: and then also questions of the victim care communities still had.

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Speaker 1: So Australia needs to stand up and kind of take

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Speaker 1: responsibility for him.

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Speaker 3: Too, I think so. And also just sort of on

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Speaker 3: a more like kind of technical level, like when I

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Speaker 3: actually started writing the podcast, we did do versions of

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Speaker 3: it where we tried not to name him, you know,

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Speaker 3: gave him like sort of pseudonyms like the individual or

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Speaker 3: something like that. But it's sort of it had what

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Speaker 3: I kind of call like a Voldemort effect where it

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Speaker 3: ended up being maybe giving it more power than it

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Speaker 3: necessarily deserved. I mean, ultimately, this is not this podcast

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Speaker 3: is not a biography of him. It's you know, he

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Speaker 3: doesn't really have any agency in this story other than

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Speaker 3: an archive of his posts that helped to track out

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Speaker 3: his radicalization trajectory. He certainly doesn't have a voice as

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Speaker 3: far as I'm concerned. You know, he's he's a complete

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Speaker 3: and utter nonentity, And it's really about the worlds around

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Speaker 3: him and how he interacted with those worlds and how

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Speaker 3: I feel like those worlds have some at least philosophical

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Speaker 3: sociological culprit bild you in terms of creating what happened

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Speaker 3: on March fifteen, twenty nineteen, I'd.

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Speaker 2: Like you to take us back to twenty fourteen. First, so.

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Speaker 1: Twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen, and I think it is easy

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Speaker 1: for us to forget what the climate was like across

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Speaker 1: those two years, and I mean, like politically across the world,

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Speaker 1: what was happening. But it was also there was a

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Speaker 1: lot happening on the Internet that maybe a lot of

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Speaker 1: us were aware of at the time because we might've

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Speaker 1: been in the world of Facebook, but there was all

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Speaker 1: these communities existing on websites like four chan and eight chan,

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Speaker 1: and these do play quite a big role in creating

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Speaker 1: what would become the christ Church terror attack in twenty nineteen.

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Speaker 1: So can you give us an idea first of all,

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Speaker 1: what the chans are and how they played a role.

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Speaker 1: And I'm going to name him a role in Brenton

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Speaker 1: Tarrence World back then.

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Speaker 3: So the chans were something that went all the way

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Speaker 3: back to the early parts of the Internet. There what's

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Speaker 3: called an image board website. It was opted from a

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Speaker 3: Japanese model. The first one in the English speaking part

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Speaker 3: of the world was called four chan, and that started

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Speaker 3: in two thousand and four. Terrence's mum had said that

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Speaker 3: he'd been on the sites, you know, since he was ten,

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Speaker 3: which really would put him right there at the beginning

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Speaker 3: of the site beginning in the English speaking parts of

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Speaker 3: the world. At its heart, basically, it's just a place

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Speaker 3: to share pictures, memes, texts, particularly on topics like gaming, anime,

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Speaker 3: stuff like that, you know, things that were particularly of

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Speaker 3: interest to this subculture of young teenage and teenage boys

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Speaker 3: and young men at this point in time. But there

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Speaker 3: was one thing about four chan that made it particularly interesting,

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Speaker 3: which is that users did not have to share their identity,

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Speaker 3: so a lot of the interactions are done completely anonymously.

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Speaker 3: It's a kind of space of uninhibited anonymity, which in

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Speaker 3: the early years actually gave it a great sense of creativity.

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Speaker 3: So a lot of the memes that we see on

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Speaker 3: the Internet today actually come from those early days of

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Speaker 3: four Chan. But then there were things happening around four Chan,

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Speaker 3: and there was a a kind of group of websites.

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Speaker 3: But one imbit that became particularly important and particularly dark

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Speaker 3: was a was a sort of a web forum called

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Speaker 3: Iron March, which was extraordinarily terroristic and became more and

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Speaker 3: more terroristic in the lead in the years lead onto

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Speaker 3: christ Church. And they were like actively targeting four Chan,

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Speaker 3: recruiting members from four Chan, particularly from that twenty fourteen

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Speaker 3: twenty fifteen window, and you know, strategically sort of the

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Speaker 3: closer I looked at their propaganda is that you know,

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Speaker 3: they were trying finding ways to share material, share propaganda

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Speaker 3: that would really create one man army lone act of terrorism.

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Speaker 3: And you know, while it doesn't make christ Church look inevitable,

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Speaker 3: it certainly makes it look extremely explainable, especially when you

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Speaker 3: see how wildly close the lining up between that those

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Speaker 3: particular activities happening on four Chan and then Terence radicalization

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Speaker 3: trajectory actually are.

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Speaker 1: That's what's happening around four Chan and the Internet, but

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Speaker 1: in the real world too, there are things happening which

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Speaker 1: is pushing these young men to become more radicalized. And

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Speaker 1: you know, there was incidents in twenty fourteen in Sydney.

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Speaker 1: You know, there was you know, a lot happening out

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Speaker 1: in the real world that was also pushing this really

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Speaker 1: anti Muslim agenda.

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Speaker 3: Absolutely, and I think like the three things really that

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Speaker 3: were happening creating this perfect storm at this period of

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Speaker 3: time where the migrant crisis in Europe became a mobilizing

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Speaker 3: issue for many people, it was being preyed upon by

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Speaker 3: far right actors to make it look like, you know,

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Speaker 3: Europe was in crisis, that traditional European ways of life

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Speaker 3: were being challenged. That coincided with the rise of Islamic state,

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Speaker 3: and that led to a spate of terror, you know,

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Speaker 3: seemingly interconnected to terror incidents in the West. And at

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Speaker 3: the same time we had this critical mass forming on

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Speaker 3: mainstream social media places like Facebook, and so this is

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Speaker 3: a kind of a whole separate ecosystem that I think

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Speaker 3: Tarrent was very much part of as well, which is

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Speaker 3: like in Australia, far at extremist groups. So for example,

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Speaker 3: the biggest one at the time was the United Patriots Front,

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Speaker 3: which seemed to have come from nowhere but was praying

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Speaker 3: on these things for propaganda, you know, a young guy

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Speaker 3: who became a mainstay of the Australian far right called

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Speaker 3: Black Patrelle started showing up at these big, big anti

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Speaker 3: Moss protests in Bendigo and basically taking over the movement.

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Speaker 3: But really what we see is that these guys were

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Speaker 3: using these you know, Islamophobia as a tool for recruitment,

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Speaker 3: as a mobilizing tool. In truth, they were Hitler worshiping,

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Speaker 3: race war wanting hardcore extremists, but it became a tool

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Speaker 3: to sort of hoover all these people up, bring them

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Speaker 3: into the movement, and then to radicalize them more and

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Speaker 3: more and more towards violence. And over the years after

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Speaker 3: that and the lead up to Christchurch, we get this

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Speaker 3: whole archive of posts that researchers had collected showing Tarent

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Speaker 3: engaging with groups like the United Patriots Front and its successor,

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Speaker 3: the Lad Society as well, you know, in very serious ways,

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Speaker 3: sort of you know, defending its leaders to people that

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Speaker 3: were threatening them, you know, encouraging its growth, sharing thoughts

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Speaker 3: on strategy, and then eventually, as we get closer to

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Speaker 3: it to the attack, also forecasting the violence that he

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Speaker 3: was going to commit to a very willing or an

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Speaker 3: audience that was very willing to listen.

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Speaker 1: Can you give us an idea of some of the

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Speaker 1: things that Tarrant was saying in some of his posts, Like,

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Speaker 1: because at some stage he's flipped from this conversations that

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Speaker 1: he's having with people because he wants to travel. He's

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Speaker 1: come into a bit of money, so he wants to

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Speaker 1: go to China and he's getting some references and it

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Speaker 1: all seems very innocent to say, within that radicalization window

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Speaker 1: that you discussed twenty fourteen to twenty fifteen, the conversations

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Speaker 1: he's having have changed dramatically.

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Speaker 2: What kinds of things is he talking about?

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Speaker 3: Yes, So we have a pretty sizable archive of posts

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Speaker 3: from across the years, and they come from everywhere, from

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Speaker 3: like Lonely Planet blogs, which like a travel book that

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Speaker 3: doesn't really exist anymore. He was posting on websites where

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Speaker 3: you asked for stock advice on how to invest in

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Speaker 3: the stock market, cryptocurrency websites, and then of course four Chad,

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Speaker 3: and then we have the posts I just mentioned in

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Speaker 3: the Australian extremist circles and we can kind of see

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Speaker 3: this process from where in the years twenty eleven, twenty twelve,

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Speaker 3: twenty thirteen, he looks like a kind of very fairly normal,

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Speaker 3: likable guy, and that's consistent with the people that I

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Speaker 3: spoke to that knew him from that period. I mean,

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Speaker 3: he could be a bit of a menace. It was

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Speaker 3: known to be. He had experienced bullying at school, and

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Speaker 3: also a lot of traumer in his personal life, which

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Speaker 3: maybe we can talk about a bit later. Those are

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Speaker 3: the push factors, as opposed to the pool factors of medicalization,

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Speaker 3: which also play a role of course. But yeah, he's

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Speaker 3: talking about, you know, wanting to travel for the rest

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Speaker 3: of his life. He's asking for advice on his itinery.

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Speaker 3: The posts in many ways from myriad seem kind of

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Speaker 3: like full of hope, not necessarily any sign of darkness

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Speaker 3: or you know, right wing terrorism or anything that would

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Speaker 3: that it would soon develop into. And then it's it's

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Speaker 3: crazy how quickly it happens. We have from twenty fourteen

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Speaker 3: the middle of twenty fourteen, he's asking advice from for

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Speaker 3: an itinery for an upcoming trip that he would take

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Speaker 3: to the interior of China, amazing jam packed itinery. And

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Speaker 3: then by the middle of twenty fifteen he starts to

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Speaker 3: talk about things like race wars. He says comments like

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Speaker 3: violence is the last resort of a cornered animal. An

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Speaker 3: important moment that he was responding to those early in

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Speaker 3: those early race war posts was a shooting at a

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Speaker 3: black church in Charleston. A young guy had killed nine

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Speaker 3: worshippers who were in prayer in Charleston. He had, it

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Speaker 3: then turned out, had been posting on a website called

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Speaker 3: The Daily Stormer, which was one of these websites around

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Speaker 3: four chan that was kind of radicalizing four channers. Tarrant

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Speaker 3: had donated numerous times to that website using cryptocurrency, and

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Speaker 3: so he's defending Dylan Ruth. Soon after that, he's posting

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Speaker 3: pictures of white shooters and venerating them, and then it

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Speaker 3: seems to just kind of get darker and darker. He

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Speaker 3: starts to talk more about race wars. He starts to

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Speaker 3: talk about this fascist fantasy of the day of the rope.

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Speaker 3: By twenty fifteen and twenty sixteen, this is a day

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Speaker 3: where everyone who was an in for the cause of

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Speaker 3: hardcore racism are basically executed, and it's become a big

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Speaker 3: part of neo Nazi and far right fantasy. And then

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Speaker 3: by twenty seventeen and twenty eighteen, we can actually see

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Speaker 3: him kind of directly forecasting the violence that he's planning.

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Speaker 3: You know, he says, for example, that he's by this

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Speaker 3: stage moved to Duneden in New Zealand, and he's talking

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Speaker 3: about going to a gym and seeing in Islamic school

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Speaker 3: across the road from his gym, and how that would

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Speaker 3: be convenient because it would mean that the people would

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Speaker 3: all be gathering in one place, and you know, people

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Speaker 3: are supporting that idea, that's certainly no one's calling him

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Speaker 3: out for it. And then later on, you know, as

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Speaker 3: we get closer in twenty eighteen on four Chan, he's

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Speaker 3: talking about, you know, the mosques that he's going to attack.

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Speaker 3: He's outlining where the mosques are in christ Church. He

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Speaker 3: mentions the third mosque in Ashburton, which is where he

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Speaker 3: was on his way to before he was viewed off

399
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Speaker 3: the road police on the day of the attack. And yeah,

400
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Speaker 3: to an audience that is broadly supportive. And by looking

401
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Speaker 3: at sort of the relationship between his posts and the

402
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Speaker 3: people around him, you kind of get the sense of

403
00:22:20,752 --> 00:22:26,631
Speaker 3: a communal radicalization where people are desensitizing each other together

404
00:22:27,272 --> 00:22:29,911
Speaker 3: and then these sort of ultimate posts, the final post

405
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Speaker 3: actually happens on the day of the attack, where he

406
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Speaker 3: posts his manifesto and a link to the live stream

407
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Speaker 3: on a website called eight chan, which had become an

408
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Speaker 3: offshoot of four chan, which was somehow even more unhinged

409
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Speaker 3: by this stage, and he asks people to do their

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Speaker 3: part in sharing his propaganda, and they absolutely do. The

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Speaker 3: man the video the live stream had been up re

412
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Speaker 3: uploaded some like you know, thousands and thousands of times

413
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Speaker 3: I think YouTube recorded and new upload every second that

414
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Speaker 3: had to be taken down for twenty four hours after

415
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Speaker 3: the attack. The manifesto was translated into multiple languages. This

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Speaker 3: was a community. This was a community that from which

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Speaker 3: christ Church grew.

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Speaker 1: Can we talk about that community, because this is something

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Speaker 1: that I really found interesting in your investigation was this

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Speaker 1: ideology that seems to come from a man called James

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Speaker 1: Mason who wrote the book Siege, which is this idea

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Speaker 1: that the organized far right groups were failing in their targets,

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Speaker 1: and so there was this idea that instead it would

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Speaker 1: take individuals to do big gestures like the christ Church

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Speaker 1: incident in order for them to really start winning this

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Speaker 1: race war. And so, yes, there are communities out there,

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Speaker 1: and there does seem to be some leaders amongst these

428
00:23:48,992 --> 00:23:53,191
Speaker 1: communities too, but in essence they are and this is

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Speaker 1: mentioned in the podcast. They are centralized, but they are

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Speaker 1: decentralized in the fact that they are not part of

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00:23:59,351 --> 00:24:02,631
Speaker 1: any particular group or movement. There's not one person in

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Speaker 1: charge of giving directives. They might be saying things that

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Speaker 1: are encouraging people to take their own actions, but what's

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Speaker 1: really difficult is that these are not organized like political

435
00:24:13,232 --> 00:24:16,552
Speaker 1: parties that you can hold accountable for the things that

436
00:24:16,712 --> 00:24:19,792
Speaker 1: its members does. There's this idea that it should be

437
00:24:20,111 --> 00:24:22,632
Speaker 1: an individual response to these situations.

438
00:24:23,311 --> 00:24:25,552
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think it speaks to one of the

439
00:24:26,311 --> 00:24:29,671
Speaker 3: difficulties in defining, you know, what a terror organization is

440
00:24:29,712 --> 00:24:32,711
Speaker 3: and what a terror organization actually looks like in the

441
00:24:32,911 --> 00:24:35,271
Speaker 3: twenty first century, which is very different to what an

442
00:24:35,272 --> 00:24:41,311
Speaker 3: original conception might might be. James Mason was a neo Nazi,

443
00:24:42,071 --> 00:24:44,792
Speaker 3: a lifelong neo Nazi, going all the way back to

444
00:24:45,472 --> 00:24:48,471
Speaker 3: American Nazi movements like George Lincoln Rockwell, this kind of

445
00:24:48,552 --> 00:24:52,951
Speaker 3: famous cigar smoking guy who'd resurrected Hitlerrist ideas in the

446
00:24:53,111 --> 00:24:56,032
Speaker 3: US in the sixties after they'd been tabooed for twenty

447
00:24:56,111 --> 00:24:59,071
Speaker 3: years after the war, and by the eighties he'd become

448
00:24:59,232 --> 00:25:03,232
Speaker 3: extremely disillusioned with how the fascist movements in the US

449
00:25:03,272 --> 00:25:07,191
Speaker 3: were operating. Neo Nazi movements are extremely liable to be split,

450
00:25:07,752 --> 00:25:12,391
Speaker 3: so often leaders are assassinated by other members. You know,

451
00:25:12,792 --> 00:25:14,952
Speaker 3: nine times out of ten, when the neo Nazi leaders dies,

452
00:25:14,992 --> 00:25:17,272
Speaker 3: it's usually at the hands of someone within their own movement.

453
00:25:17,952 --> 00:25:20,232
Speaker 3: And so in the eighties he started to publish a

454
00:25:20,272 --> 00:25:25,751
Speaker 3: series of newsletters called Siege where he outlined this alternative vision,

455
00:25:26,232 --> 00:25:28,991
Speaker 3: which is that, you know, rather than trying to organize

456
00:25:29,032 --> 00:25:31,512
Speaker 3: cells that are so liable to be infiltrated and split,

457
00:25:31,952 --> 00:25:34,272
Speaker 3: you know, we should actually just have one man armies.

458
00:25:34,391 --> 00:25:38,392
Speaker 3: People should go out and plan and carry out terrorism

459
00:25:39,071 --> 00:25:42,792
Speaker 3: by themselves. When he eventually published that into a book

460
00:25:42,871 --> 00:25:44,552
Speaker 3: into the early nineties, and he had a bit of

461
00:25:44,591 --> 00:25:47,831
Speaker 3: a splash, but it didn't really go anywhere, And partly

462
00:25:48,151 --> 00:25:51,871
Speaker 3: that was because he ended up in prison for abusing

463
00:25:52,351 --> 00:25:54,752
Speaker 3: an ex partner of his who was a teenage girl.

464
00:25:55,431 --> 00:25:58,311
Speaker 3: He was a man in his late forties at this stage.

465
00:25:59,272 --> 00:26:02,831
Speaker 3: But then also because it faced some structural barriers. So

466
00:26:03,311 --> 00:26:08,631
Speaker 3: in the nineties, neo Nazis relied on groups to radicalize

467
00:26:08,671 --> 00:26:12,471
Speaker 3: new members to bring people into the movement, to spread

468
00:26:12,512 --> 00:26:16,632
Speaker 3: their vision, to be organized. There was no technology available

469
00:26:16,671 --> 00:26:18,471
Speaker 3: to be able to do it any other way. But

470
00:26:18,671 --> 00:26:21,871
Speaker 3: Mason at the time didn't predict the power of the Internet.

471
00:26:22,472 --> 00:26:25,471
Speaker 3: And what we see is after twenty years of obscurity,

472
00:26:25,831 --> 00:26:28,471
Speaker 3: when these forums are around eight chan that I'd mentioned

473
00:26:28,552 --> 00:26:30,952
Speaker 3: that one Iron March that I think plays a particularly

474
00:26:31,151 --> 00:26:34,512
Speaker 3: important role in the podcast people. In these forums, you

475
00:26:34,911 --> 00:26:38,552
Speaker 3: start to resurrect James Mason's ideas. I mean, Iron March

476
00:26:38,631 --> 00:26:41,471
Speaker 3: had become a place where a whole bunch of different

477
00:26:41,712 --> 00:26:45,552
Speaker 3: kind of hectic fascist literature had been discussed and explored.

478
00:26:45,871 --> 00:26:47,831
Speaker 3: There's a whole bunch of groups that are formed on

479
00:26:47,992 --> 00:26:50,391
Speaker 3: Iron March that at the time we had no idea

480
00:26:50,472 --> 00:26:52,792
Speaker 3: were interconnected. We didn't know until after. There was a

481
00:26:52,911 --> 00:26:56,391
Speaker 3: big leak actually after christ Church in November between nineteen

482
00:26:56,472 --> 00:26:59,792
Speaker 3: of all of Iron Marcher's messages and data going back

483
00:27:00,032 --> 00:27:02,071
Speaker 3: going back years pretty much into the beginning of the site.

484
00:27:02,391 --> 00:27:05,591
Speaker 3: It's now often referred to as the skull Mask Network.

485
00:27:06,351 --> 00:27:08,272
Speaker 3: When you look at how you know something like James

486
00:27:08,351 --> 00:27:13,591
Speaker 3: Mason was being reignited in this period, It's like, wow, okay, well,

487
00:27:13,831 --> 00:27:16,272
Speaker 3: you know christ Church is in so went many ways

488
00:27:16,351 --> 00:27:20,552
Speaker 3: explainable by James Mason and his theories and scattered throughout

489
00:27:20,591 --> 00:27:24,272
Speaker 3: the Manifesto of the christ Church Terrorists. And the manifesto

490
00:27:24,391 --> 00:27:26,591
Speaker 3: is a kind of complicated document with lots of different

491
00:27:26,591 --> 00:27:31,232
Speaker 3: references to lots of different subcultures, but unquestionably lines that

492
00:27:31,351 --> 00:27:35,472
Speaker 3: are directly inspired by James Mason and siege. James Mason

493
00:27:35,472 --> 00:27:38,032
Speaker 3: believed that if you had enough christ Church style terrorist

494
00:27:38,032 --> 00:27:41,432
Speaker 3: attacks carried out, you know, in a short period of time,

495
00:27:41,911 --> 00:27:45,871
Speaker 3: you trigger a reaction and opposition or reaction of violent reaction,

496
00:27:46,431 --> 00:27:49,632
Speaker 3: it would lead to some kind of war along racial lines,

497
00:27:49,712 --> 00:27:53,351
Speaker 3: and then eventually a race war, and then society would

498
00:27:53,351 --> 00:27:56,912
Speaker 3: collapse and from that a utopian whites only society would

499
00:27:56,952 --> 00:27:59,831
Speaker 3: be would be built. I mean, it's like totally airy, fairy,

500
00:28:00,472 --> 00:28:05,671
Speaker 3: pseudo religious insanity, but it was deeply held by a

501
00:28:05,752 --> 00:28:08,351
Speaker 3: lot of people all around the world and lead up

502
00:28:08,351 --> 00:28:11,711
Speaker 3: to christ Church, and I think unquestionably also by the

503
00:28:11,752 --> 00:28:13,111
Speaker 3: christ Church terrorist himself.

504
00:28:16,472 --> 00:28:19,431
Speaker 1: You're listening to True Crime Conversations with me, Claire Murphy.

505
00:28:19,671 --> 00:28:22,671
Speaker 1: I'm speaking with investigative journalist and host of Secrets We

506
00:28:22,831 --> 00:28:24,712
Speaker 1: Keep Lone actor Joey Watson.

507
00:28:25,192 --> 00:28:25,631
Speaker 2: Up next.

508
00:28:25,831 --> 00:28:28,632
Speaker 1: Joey tells us what he discovered when he was tracking

509
00:28:28,752 --> 00:28:31,351
Speaker 1: Brenton Tarrant in the years leading up to his attack

510
00:28:31,552 --> 00:28:37,711
Speaker 1: on the mosques in Christchurch. Well, you were tracking Tarrant

511
00:28:37,792 --> 00:28:40,272
Speaker 1: not only on the Internet but in the real world

512
00:28:40,392 --> 00:28:43,031
Speaker 1: too in those years leading up to twenty nineteen.

513
00:28:43,112 --> 00:28:45,312
Speaker 2: And we know that he did quite a lot of travel.

514
00:28:45,352 --> 00:28:47,352
Speaker 1: I mean we knew that beforehand anyway, because he was

515
00:28:47,431 --> 00:28:51,032
Speaker 1: asking for reviews on things and posting his itineraries. But

516
00:28:52,352 --> 00:28:56,671
Speaker 1: through twenty sixteen to twenty eighteen, he was traveling to

517
00:28:56,752 --> 00:29:02,392
Speaker 1: sort of a certain area of Europe frequently. Do we know, like,

518
00:29:02,512 --> 00:29:04,512
Speaker 1: do we know for sure what he was doing during

519
00:29:04,592 --> 00:29:05,152
Speaker 1: those trips.

520
00:29:06,352 --> 00:29:08,832
Speaker 3: I think that we have elements where I feel like

521
00:29:08,872 --> 00:29:11,072
Speaker 3: I have a clearer picture of what was going on

522
00:29:11,232 --> 00:29:14,352
Speaker 3: at that point, at these points in times, so Tarrant

523
00:29:14,392 --> 00:29:16,792
Speaker 3: had become by the day of the attack, obsessed with

524
00:29:16,911 --> 00:29:20,671
Speaker 3: an area of Europe known as the Balkans. The Balkans

525
00:29:20,872 --> 00:29:24,152
Speaker 3: is a place where people have in very recent history

526
00:29:24,472 --> 00:29:28,152
Speaker 3: killed for race and religion. People might be familiar with

527
00:29:28,272 --> 00:29:31,392
Speaker 3: the or remember the Balkan Wars of the nineties after

528
00:29:31,431 --> 00:29:35,232
Speaker 3: the fall of Yugoslavia the Bosnian which primarily took place

529
00:29:35,272 --> 00:29:40,751
Speaker 3: in Bosnia, where Serbian Christian Serbian forces and Croatian Catholic

530
00:29:40,872 --> 00:29:47,272
Speaker 3: forces targeted in many ways Bosniak Muslims and eventually committed

531
00:29:47,392 --> 00:29:49,912
Speaker 3: the only genocide in Europe since the Second World War

532
00:29:50,192 --> 00:29:52,991
Speaker 3: at Sebranitza. And it's very much an area of Europe

533
00:29:52,992 --> 00:29:56,911
Speaker 3: where things are still completely kind of divided along racial lines,

534
00:29:57,152 --> 00:29:59,152
Speaker 3: and in Serbia in particular, a lot of the people

535
00:29:59,272 --> 00:30:03,152
Speaker 3: that carried out those attacks were celebrated. When christ Church happened,

536
00:30:03,272 --> 00:30:07,352
Speaker 3: Tarrant had played a song venerating the perpetrator of the

537
00:30:07,472 --> 00:30:09,312
Speaker 3: man who would sort of go, who was now in

538
00:30:09,352 --> 00:30:12,951
Speaker 3: prison for carrying out that jedocide, had been responsible for

539
00:30:12,992 --> 00:30:16,471
Speaker 3: that jedocide at Cebriantis so radvan Krajitch. He also painted

540
00:30:16,512 --> 00:30:20,152
Speaker 3: the names of Serb war leaders on his guns in Cyrillic,

541
00:30:20,832 --> 00:30:25,992
Speaker 3: the traditional alphabet of Serbia and Eastern Europe. So the

542
00:30:26,112 --> 00:30:29,031
Speaker 3: fact that he had been there well on those two

543
00:30:29,112 --> 00:30:30,792
Speaker 3: separate troops here, but the fact that he'd been in

544
00:30:30,872 --> 00:30:35,312
Speaker 3: Serbia and Bosnia in twenty sixteen became of a focus

545
00:30:35,431 --> 00:30:39,951
Speaker 3: point for this investigation. And interestingly enough, while it was

546
00:30:40,112 --> 00:30:42,632
Speaker 3: very difficult to retrace exactly what he was doing at

547
00:30:42,671 --> 00:30:46,352
Speaker 3: that point in time, Serbian authorities were not particularly forthcoming.

548
00:30:46,712 --> 00:30:49,312
Speaker 3: This is where he'd actually emailed the Rifle Club, So

549
00:30:49,431 --> 00:30:51,512
Speaker 3: this is about two years before the attack. This is

550
00:30:51,552 --> 00:30:54,711
Speaker 3: where he emailed the Rifle Club in New Zealand asking

551
00:30:54,752 --> 00:30:57,712
Speaker 3: if they were taking members, which was his first step

552
00:30:57,752 --> 00:31:02,232
Speaker 3: in his mobilization towards violence. It was unclear how closely

553
00:31:02,392 --> 00:31:04,192
Speaker 3: that was linked to the setting in which it took

554
00:31:04,272 --> 00:31:10,032
Speaker 3: place until last year researchers at Auckland University unearthed a

555
00:31:10,072 --> 00:31:12,911
Speaker 3: whole bunch of new four Cham posts. They were made anonymously,

556
00:31:13,072 --> 00:31:16,031
Speaker 3: but they are with a high degree of certainty were

557
00:31:16,152 --> 00:31:19,272
Speaker 3: made by the terrorists. Where he is actually sort of

558
00:31:19,352 --> 00:31:23,471
Speaker 3: talking about being in the Balkans, that he claiming that

559
00:31:23,552 --> 00:31:26,152
Speaker 3: he was committing acts of violence while he was there

560
00:31:26,592 --> 00:31:29,792
Speaker 3: against Muslims, you know, for example, at a bar in Croatia.

561
00:31:30,392 --> 00:31:34,112
Speaker 3: And then he talks about wanting the reignition of the

562
00:31:34,392 --> 00:31:39,671
Speaker 3: Balkan Wars and that the reignition of another genocide, and

563
00:31:39,952 --> 00:31:42,911
Speaker 3: that he would be willing to fund four Chan users

564
00:31:43,431 --> 00:31:45,632
Speaker 3: if they sort of post a picture of him, of

565
00:31:45,752 --> 00:31:48,232
Speaker 3: themselves being able to fire a weapon to come to

566
00:31:48,272 --> 00:31:53,352
Speaker 3: the Balkans to help carry out that genocide. And people

567
00:31:53,431 --> 00:31:57,032
Speaker 3: are kind of largely very receptive to the receptive to it.

568
00:31:57,112 --> 00:31:59,392
Speaker 3: He's very specific in his claims as well. He says,

569
00:31:59,712 --> 00:32:03,232
Speaker 3: you know, he has a investment property which he would

570
00:32:03,272 --> 00:32:04,872
Speaker 3: sell to be able to carry it out. That's true.

571
00:32:04,911 --> 00:32:07,352
Speaker 3: He did have an investment property that he had with

572
00:32:07,431 --> 00:32:10,392
Speaker 3: his sister. So the level of specicificy is kind of

573
00:32:10,752 --> 00:32:13,431
Speaker 3: like deeply concerning and very confronting, and those are some

574
00:32:13,472 --> 00:32:16,471
Speaker 3: of the most confronting posts from the whole investigation. There

575
00:32:16,592 --> 00:32:20,992
Speaker 3: is a second Balkan trip then again, which happens just

576
00:32:21,072 --> 00:32:24,032
Speaker 3: months before the attack, and this time he goes to Bulgaria.

577
00:32:24,512 --> 00:32:29,312
Speaker 3: He does this sort of like nationalist ultra nationalist pilgrimage.

578
00:32:29,392 --> 00:32:31,952
Speaker 3: So Bulgaria is a country right in the southeast corner

579
00:32:32,032 --> 00:32:35,431
Speaker 3: of Europe, shares a border with Turkey, and for a

580
00:32:35,512 --> 00:32:37,991
Speaker 3: great deal of its history it had been occupied by

581
00:32:38,112 --> 00:32:42,072
Speaker 3: the Ottoman Empire, which was a Muslim empire, and the

582
00:32:42,832 --> 00:32:46,272
Speaker 3: Bulgarian Christian Bulgaria's kind of wars of resistance against the

583
00:32:46,312 --> 00:32:49,632
Speaker 3: Ottomans are a huge part of nationalist mythology, and scattered

584
00:32:49,671 --> 00:32:52,431
Speaker 3: throughout the Balkan Mountains in Bulgaria are all these locations

585
00:32:52,512 --> 00:32:55,632
Speaker 3: celebrating those wars and tarent had left behind an ARCHI

586
00:32:55,952 --> 00:32:58,352
Speaker 3: facebook photos that sort of show that he had visited

587
00:32:58,632 --> 00:33:00,512
Speaker 3: a whole bunch of these places, and I followed in

588
00:33:00,592 --> 00:33:04,991
Speaker 3: his footsteps in Bulgaria. You know, while I don't want

589
00:33:05,032 --> 00:33:07,751
Speaker 3: to sort of be that journalist goes to another country

590
00:33:07,752 --> 00:33:11,471
Speaker 3: and starts, you know, judging it's it's it's politics anyway,

591
00:33:11,552 --> 00:33:13,552
Speaker 3: but you know, in terms of having explanatory power for

592
00:33:13,671 --> 00:33:17,152
Speaker 3: this story's I've never seen so many kind of swastikas

593
00:33:17,192 --> 00:33:20,232
Speaker 3: in my life. It's a country where a lot of

594
00:33:20,431 --> 00:33:23,951
Speaker 3: extremist groups in Western Europe do activities there because they

595
00:33:23,992 --> 00:33:25,471
Speaker 3: feel like they can get a more get away with

596
00:33:25,552 --> 00:33:28,472
Speaker 3: more there. The institutions are weaker compared to the rest

597
00:33:28,512 --> 00:33:32,271
Speaker 3: of Europe, but all of their propaganda, interestingly, was in English,

598
00:33:32,352 --> 00:33:34,672
Speaker 3: and I found out that they were regularly being visited

599
00:33:34,792 --> 00:33:38,832
Speaker 3: by far right extremists from Western Europe, for example. And yeah,

600
00:33:38,872 --> 00:33:40,911
Speaker 3: there's certainly a theory that this would have been the

601
00:33:40,992 --> 00:33:43,431
Speaker 3: reason of why Tarrant had become so obsessed with this

602
00:33:43,512 --> 00:33:45,152
Speaker 3: part of the world, and maybe that he'd even been

603
00:33:45,152 --> 00:33:48,191
Speaker 3: in contact with these groups and years leading up to

604
00:33:48,232 --> 00:33:51,312
Speaker 3: the attack. It certainly shows kind of just how much

605
00:33:51,392 --> 00:33:53,752
Speaker 3: more that was going on and things like Bulgaria, which

606
00:33:53,752 --> 00:33:57,312
Speaker 3: it first seems so random and obscure, started to make

607
00:33:57,352 --> 00:33:58,032
Speaker 3: a lot more sense.

608
00:33:58,671 --> 00:34:02,872
Speaker 1: There is records of Tarrent donating to various far right figures.

609
00:34:03,431 --> 00:34:07,752
Speaker 1: One of those is Austrian muttin Zelna who he and

610
00:34:07,992 --> 00:34:10,951
Speaker 1: his girlfriend together do a lot of work in this

611
00:34:11,032 --> 00:34:13,792
Speaker 1: far right space. They have podcasts, they do a lot

612
00:34:13,832 --> 00:34:19,792
Speaker 1: of discussions with people around their belief systems, and we couldn't, well,

613
00:34:19,832 --> 00:34:23,552
Speaker 1: you couldn't prove that they actually met in person whilst

614
00:34:23,632 --> 00:34:28,512
Speaker 1: he was in Europe. But he would then become I believe,

615
00:34:28,551 --> 00:34:32,112
Speaker 1: the only person to be investigated in relation to the

616
00:34:32,192 --> 00:34:35,272
Speaker 1: shooting in christ Church outside of the New Zealand investigation

617
00:34:36,672 --> 00:34:40,031
Speaker 1: because of his potential links to Tarrant and potentially to

618
00:34:40,511 --> 00:34:43,392
Speaker 1: be motivating him to do what he did. How much

619
00:34:43,471 --> 00:34:46,991
Speaker 1: do we know about the relationship between those two and

620
00:34:47,312 --> 00:34:51,192
Speaker 1: just how close were they and could he have influenced

621
00:34:51,232 --> 00:34:52,312
Speaker 1: Tarran to do what he did?

622
00:34:52,991 --> 00:34:56,471
Speaker 3: Yeah? So. Martin Selmer is the leader of probably the

623
00:34:56,511 --> 00:35:00,032
Speaker 3: most prominent member of an organization called the Identitarian Movement,

624
00:35:00,752 --> 00:35:05,072
Speaker 3: which began in France around twenty ten and twenty eleven,

625
00:35:05,352 --> 00:35:09,191
Speaker 3: but slowly spread to Europe. In twenty seventeen and twenty

626
00:35:09,272 --> 00:35:13,272
Speaker 3: eighteen and then became the title of Tarence Manifesto. Right, so,

627
00:35:13,551 --> 00:35:16,951
Speaker 3: because of the the and Tarrent was certainly throughout the

628
00:35:16,991 --> 00:35:19,591
Speaker 3: manifesto obsessed with this theory, and that he propagated it

629
00:35:19,712 --> 00:35:22,752
Speaker 3: in himself. This meant that immediately after there was heaps

630
00:35:22,792 --> 00:35:27,032
Speaker 3: of commentary in the media about these crazy similarities between

631
00:35:27,112 --> 00:35:29,551
Speaker 3: the ideology of Martin Zelner and the ideology of the

632
00:35:29,632 --> 00:35:32,592
Speaker 3: christ Church terrorist and people wondered whether there were any links.

633
00:35:33,272 --> 00:35:35,951
Speaker 3: Very soon after that it became apparent that Tarrant had

634
00:35:35,991 --> 00:35:39,032
Speaker 3: donated a fairly large donation of about fifteen hundred dollars

635
00:35:39,112 --> 00:35:43,591
Speaker 3: to Martin Zelner. He then came under investigation. In the

636
00:35:43,672 --> 00:35:47,312
Speaker 3: course of that investigation, it was revealed he originally sort

637
00:35:47,352 --> 00:35:48,832
Speaker 3: of said that that was the extent of it, and

638
00:35:48,911 --> 00:35:50,872
Speaker 3: maybe that they'd exchanged an email, but in the course

639
00:35:50,911 --> 00:35:54,352
Speaker 3: of that investigation it came out that they'd actually she

640
00:35:54,352 --> 00:35:59,392
Speaker 3: had quite a comprehensive email exchange, that Tarrent had been

641
00:35:59,471 --> 00:36:01,591
Speaker 3: invited by Zelna to come and meet him for a

642
00:36:01,632 --> 00:36:03,512
Speaker 3: coffee or a beer if he was ever in Vienna,

643
00:36:03,832 --> 00:36:06,192
Speaker 3: and after the day after the last email had been

644
00:36:06,352 --> 00:36:09,071
Speaker 3: exchange between the two Tarrant had actually booked a higher

645
00:36:09,152 --> 00:36:11,191
Speaker 3: car for a trip to Vienna that he would take

646
00:36:11,832 --> 00:36:14,592
Speaker 3: after Bulgaria. So we're really talking, you know, just months,

647
00:36:14,792 --> 00:36:17,352
Speaker 3: really really, you know, weeks even before the attack, right

648
00:36:17,392 --> 00:36:19,272
Speaker 3: at the end of twenty eighteen. I think it's sort

649
00:36:19,312 --> 00:36:25,671
Speaker 3: of November twenty eighteen. Zelna obviously, like emphatically denies ever

650
00:36:25,951 --> 00:36:28,752
Speaker 3: having met with Tarran. I don't know whether during that

651
00:36:28,911 --> 00:36:33,032
Speaker 3: trip Zelna and Tarrant actually met. The record of Tarent's

652
00:36:33,072 --> 00:36:37,191
Speaker 3: time in Austria is extremely limited. I noticed the way

653
00:36:37,232 --> 00:36:40,312
Speaker 3: New Zealand investigated investigators talk about it in their report.

654
00:36:40,431 --> 00:36:44,752
Speaker 3: They they're kind of inconclusive. They say it's unlikely that

655
00:36:44,872 --> 00:36:46,951
Speaker 3: he would have met with Zelda because he wouldn't have quote,

656
00:36:47,072 --> 00:36:50,352
Speaker 3: wanted to withdraw at security attention to himself so close

657
00:36:50,431 --> 00:36:53,272
Speaker 3: to the attack. That may as well, that may well

658
00:36:53,352 --> 00:36:53,791
Speaker 3: be true.

659
00:36:53,991 --> 00:36:54,671
Speaker 2: Well, let's talk.

660
00:36:54,592 --> 00:36:57,632
Speaker 1: About the month or two he spends in New Zealand

661
00:36:57,792 --> 00:37:02,192
Speaker 1: before the day he decides to live stream the attack

662
00:37:02,272 --> 00:37:03,152
Speaker 1: on those mosques.

663
00:37:04,312 --> 00:37:06,632
Speaker 2: What was he doing in that time? You know, we

664
00:37:06,752 --> 00:37:08,631
Speaker 2: know that he has reached out to the rifle club.

665
00:37:08,752 --> 00:37:13,392
Speaker 1: We know that he has learnt to shoot through a

666
00:37:13,471 --> 00:37:16,312
Speaker 1: game a friend of his who's gone shooting together. Like,

667
00:37:16,392 --> 00:37:18,431
Speaker 1: so we know that he's kind of prepping himself at

668
00:37:18,431 --> 00:37:20,272
Speaker 1: this stage, but what do we know about what he's

669
00:37:20,312 --> 00:37:23,551
Speaker 1: doing and saying online? Is he making it very clear

670
00:37:23,632 --> 00:37:24,551
Speaker 1: that he is about.

671
00:37:24,991 --> 00:37:26,071
Speaker 2: To do what he's going to do.

672
00:37:27,632 --> 00:37:30,712
Speaker 3: I think that unquestionably he's forecasting the violence that he's

673
00:37:30,752 --> 00:37:32,711
Speaker 3: about to plan. I mean, we had this period leading

674
00:37:32,752 --> 00:37:35,272
Speaker 3: up to the attack where his real life world is

675
00:37:36,112 --> 00:37:40,352
Speaker 3: unquestionably extremely alone, but his online world seems to be

676
00:37:40,471 --> 00:37:42,152
Speaker 3: quite engaged and grown.

677
00:37:42,392 --> 00:37:44,752
Speaker 1: Because his apartment is like bear right, he's barely got

678
00:37:44,752 --> 00:37:46,032
Speaker 1: any furniture in his apartment.

679
00:37:46,031 --> 00:37:48,911
Speaker 2: He's living a very like scant.

680
00:37:49,152 --> 00:37:52,951
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's extremely scant, and I mean he so the

681
00:37:53,072 --> 00:37:56,431
Speaker 3: move to New Zealand, you know, originally was one of

682
00:37:56,471 --> 00:38:00,432
Speaker 3: those things that seemed kind of like just random, especially

683
00:38:00,431 --> 00:38:02,031
Speaker 3: because it was to Duneed And I mean maybe if

684
00:38:02,031 --> 00:38:03,591
Speaker 3: he'd gone to Auckland it would have made more sense,

685
00:38:03,672 --> 00:38:06,551
Speaker 3: but he had no family connections in Duneed, you know.

686
00:38:07,152 --> 00:38:09,911
Speaker 3: But now that we know that his radicalization trajectory and

687
00:38:09,911 --> 00:38:11,872
Speaker 3: that he had already been resolving towards violence for years

688
00:38:11,911 --> 00:38:16,471
Speaker 3: before that, it starts to look more like a strategic decision. Right,

689
00:38:16,592 --> 00:38:19,231
Speaker 3: this was something that he would do because he knew

690
00:38:19,312 --> 00:38:22,112
Speaker 3: that he would have more lenient gun laws there. He

691
00:38:22,592 --> 00:38:25,712
Speaker 3: had a friend that he'd met gaming in Waikato at

692
00:38:25,712 --> 00:38:28,031
Speaker 3: the other end of the country that assisted him in

693
00:38:28,112 --> 00:38:31,431
Speaker 3: getting his gun license. He became his referee, and the

694
00:38:31,672 --> 00:38:35,991
Speaker 3: father of this gaming friend became Tarent's second referee, and

695
00:38:36,112 --> 00:38:38,592
Speaker 3: this was within weeks of him arriving in New Zealand.

696
00:38:38,592 --> 00:38:42,072
Speaker 3: He'd already applied for his gun license. He then regularly trained,

697
00:38:42,431 --> 00:38:44,272
Speaker 3: he went to the gym. He didn't have much of

698
00:38:44,312 --> 00:38:46,191
Speaker 3: an online social he didn't have much of a real

699
00:38:46,471 --> 00:38:49,431
Speaker 3: social life whatsoever. You know, as you said, there was

700
00:38:49,511 --> 00:38:52,471
Speaker 3: not much even furniture in his apartment, but there was

701
00:38:52,632 --> 00:38:56,112
Speaker 3: a computer and so much of the social engagement that

702
00:38:56,152 --> 00:38:57,752
Speaker 3: we see in that period leading out to the attack,

703
00:38:57,911 --> 00:39:01,112
Speaker 3: that's where that happened, including that forecasting of violence. So

704
00:39:01,471 --> 00:39:03,872
Speaker 3: the main events that we have in Tarren's life, things

705
00:39:03,991 --> 00:39:07,552
Speaker 3: like at one stage he at the end of twenty seventeen,

706
00:39:07,991 --> 00:39:11,312
Speaker 3: he injures himself when he's cleaning his rifle and he

707
00:39:11,352 --> 00:39:14,152
Speaker 3: has to present to hospital to get his eye fixed

708
00:39:14,312 --> 00:39:17,151
Speaker 3: because of injuries that he'd sustained in that moment in time,

709
00:39:18,072 --> 00:39:20,431
Speaker 3: he also has to go to hospital another period for

710
00:39:20,551 --> 00:39:24,511
Speaker 3: steroid use. He'd been abusing steroids, it seemed, and that

711
00:39:24,712 --> 00:39:27,312
Speaker 3: was his second presentation. These are the nature of his

712
00:39:27,392 --> 00:39:30,232
Speaker 3: social interaction. They all seem to revolve around something to

713
00:39:30,312 --> 00:39:33,431
Speaker 3: do with the attack in January. On I think the

714
00:39:33,471 --> 00:39:36,191
Speaker 3: twelfth of January, he'd taken a trip to christ Church

715
00:39:36,712 --> 00:39:39,991
Speaker 3: where he conducted surveillance of the mosque. He'd phone a

716
00:39:40,072 --> 00:39:43,792
Speaker 3: drone over the mosque to sort of work out how

717
00:39:43,872 --> 00:39:47,192
Speaker 3: he was going to carry out the attack, and otherwise

718
00:39:47,392 --> 00:39:50,071
Speaker 3: he was just sort of meticulously training. I mean, he

719
00:39:50,352 --> 00:39:54,712
Speaker 3: was in many ways the realization, the ultimate realization of

720
00:39:54,792 --> 00:39:58,071
Speaker 3: what James Mason had predicted and asked for and what

721
00:39:58,232 --> 00:40:00,631
Speaker 3: these groups were calling for as of a one man army.

722
00:40:00,752 --> 00:40:04,472
Speaker 3: This was coordinated lone actor terrorism.

723
00:40:05,551 --> 00:40:07,911
Speaker 1: Then he makes a fine call the night before the attack,

724
00:40:09,152 --> 00:40:13,271
Speaker 1: calls his mum and she even she says that phone

725
00:40:13,312 --> 00:40:14,151
Speaker 1: call wasn't quite right.

726
00:40:14,312 --> 00:40:17,631
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right. His mum told Australian investigators that he'd

727
00:40:17,632 --> 00:40:19,232
Speaker 3: said that he loved her, which is not something he

728
00:40:19,312 --> 00:40:24,431
Speaker 3: said very often. And you know, I try, I try

729
00:40:24,431 --> 00:40:27,031
Speaker 3: in this sort of investigation to focus on the worlds

730
00:40:27,072 --> 00:40:31,031
Speaker 3: around Tarent and not him so much specifically but you know,

731
00:40:31,632 --> 00:40:33,991
Speaker 3: certainly there is a kind of element of like deep

732
00:40:34,192 --> 00:40:38,151
Speaker 3: dark tragedy in that moment in time, because Yeah, then

733
00:40:38,152 --> 00:40:40,711
Speaker 3: the next day he goes and sort of carries out

734
00:40:41,112 --> 00:40:45,672
Speaker 3: the unimaginable, unimaginable that had been a consequence of worlds

735
00:40:45,752 --> 00:40:49,872
Speaker 3: that his mom certainly wouldn't have known about her understood,

736
00:40:50,232 --> 00:40:54,712
Speaker 3: worlds that most Australians certainly wouldn't have known about or understood.

737
00:40:55,112 --> 00:40:57,232
Speaker 3: And I think that's why we kind of came to

738
00:40:57,272 --> 00:40:59,511
Speaker 3: see him as being completely alone, because they were so

739
00:40:59,632 --> 00:41:02,431
Speaker 3: invisible to everyone else around him.

740
00:41:05,192 --> 00:41:08,431
Speaker 1: Next, I asked Joy about the manifesto that Arrant published

741
00:41:08,431 --> 00:41:11,112
Speaker 1: online on the day of the attack and the dangerous

742
00:41:11,152 --> 00:41:16,792
Speaker 1: repercussions of it being made available to the internet. As

743
00:41:16,832 --> 00:41:19,991
Speaker 1: you mentioned, he published his manifesto online on the day

744
00:41:19,991 --> 00:41:22,352
Speaker 1: of the attack. He also emailed it to then Prime

745
00:41:22,392 --> 00:41:27,551
Speaker 1: Minister Jacinda Arderne's office. We kind of understand what the

746
00:41:27,632 --> 00:41:31,431
Speaker 1: manifesto included, but where does that exist now?

747
00:41:31,672 --> 00:41:32,591
Speaker 2: Once you put something on.

748
00:41:32,632 --> 00:41:35,312
Speaker 1: The Internet, it's generally there forever, and as you mentioned,

749
00:41:35,312 --> 00:41:37,672
Speaker 1: it was translated into a bunch of different languages, It

750
00:41:37,832 --> 00:41:41,192
Speaker 1: was shared far and wide across the world. Can you

751
00:41:41,431 --> 00:41:43,392
Speaker 1: ever remove something like that? From the Internet.

752
00:41:43,832 --> 00:41:46,392
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's important to say as well that

753
00:41:47,031 --> 00:41:50,071
Speaker 3: he had been not only strategic in the way that

754
00:41:50,232 --> 00:41:53,672
Speaker 3: he committed the violence, but I'd argue even more strategic

755
00:41:53,712 --> 00:41:56,631
Speaker 3: in the way that he created his propaganda in order

756
00:41:56,712 --> 00:41:59,232
Speaker 3: for this to become an inspirational act of terrorism. Right,

757
00:41:59,872 --> 00:42:03,632
Speaker 3: he'd live stream the attack, He'd created a manifesto that

758
00:42:04,352 --> 00:42:07,951
Speaker 3: was deliberately targeted to the multiple communities that he was

759
00:42:08,352 --> 00:42:11,471
Speaker 3: operating in, things that made him look kind of insane

760
00:42:11,551 --> 00:42:14,071
Speaker 3: to people that were outside those communities, that made kind

761
00:42:14,072 --> 00:42:16,392
Speaker 3: of complete sense to people that were on eight chan.

762
00:42:16,511 --> 00:42:18,991
Speaker 3: It was full of in jokes and then of course

763
00:42:19,031 --> 00:42:21,191
Speaker 3: references to some of the darkest stuff like the James

764
00:42:21,272 --> 00:42:23,911
Speaker 3: Mason stuff that we had spoken about. But you know,

765
00:42:24,072 --> 00:42:27,591
Speaker 3: through the live stream, which he knew would be proliferated

766
00:42:27,632 --> 00:42:30,272
Speaker 3: through the Internet by by eight chan, as by and

767
00:42:30,352 --> 00:42:32,911
Speaker 3: people in the other extremist forums around eight chan. He

768
00:42:33,031 --> 00:42:35,312
Speaker 3: knew that it would be share thousands and thousands of times.

769
00:42:35,352 --> 00:42:38,192
Speaker 3: He'd done that thing of you know, that that thing

770
00:42:38,232 --> 00:42:40,951
Speaker 3: that inspirational terrorists tried to do, which is to create

771
00:42:41,072 --> 00:42:43,352
Speaker 3: terrorism that looks like theater, that something that can be

772
00:42:43,471 --> 00:42:47,392
Speaker 3: consumed not so different to the spectacle of having planes

773
00:42:47,471 --> 00:42:49,872
Speaker 3: fly into the World Trade Center. You know, it's not

774
00:42:50,152 --> 00:42:52,192
Speaker 3: just about the damage that's inflicted on the people that

775
00:42:52,272 --> 00:42:54,272
Speaker 3: are in the towers, and it's not just about you know,

776
00:42:54,392 --> 00:42:57,312
Speaker 3: the fifty one dead and all of the injured, including

777
00:42:57,352 --> 00:42:59,431
Speaker 3: you know, children as young as three and four that

778
00:42:59,511 --> 00:43:02,792
Speaker 3: are shot on that day in the mosques. It's also

779
00:43:03,471 --> 00:43:07,192
Speaker 3: you know, about creating the spectacle, the inspirational spectacle for

780
00:43:07,352 --> 00:43:10,991
Speaker 3: people to consume it and to you know, hopefully or

781
00:43:11,272 --> 00:43:13,312
Speaker 3: his hope is that they would then kind of carry

782
00:43:13,352 --> 00:43:17,431
Speaker 3: it on. And that is certainly absolutely what we've seen.

783
00:43:18,312 --> 00:43:21,192
Speaker 3: It's interesting that Australia as Australia sort of had this

784
00:43:21,232 --> 00:43:23,471
Speaker 3: collective amnesia around the event, as we sort of forget,

785
00:43:23,551 --> 00:43:26,551
Speaker 3: for tried to forget that it had ever happened. People

786
00:43:26,632 --> 00:43:30,751
Speaker 3: in this community became obsessed with it. Very soon after,

787
00:43:30,951 --> 00:43:34,472
Speaker 3: there was a shift away from some of these forums

788
00:43:34,511 --> 00:43:36,911
Speaker 3: onto a new space called Telegram. I think christ Church

789
00:43:37,072 --> 00:43:39,672
Speaker 3: was really important in that because you know, it was

790
00:43:39,752 --> 00:43:41,752
Speaker 3: clear that that they weren't going to be tenable for

791
00:43:41,872 --> 00:43:43,911
Speaker 3: much longer, and they were right. For example, eight Chan,

792
00:43:44,392 --> 00:43:47,551
Speaker 3: the company cloud Fare that provided the web infrastructure for it,

793
00:43:47,951 --> 00:43:51,112
Speaker 3: stopped doing that by August that year, and so a

794
00:43:51,152 --> 00:43:54,032
Speaker 3: lot of these people moved to a different messaging platform

795
00:43:54,072 --> 00:43:57,632
Speaker 3: called Telegram, which is owned by this Russian tech billionaire

796
00:43:58,072 --> 00:44:02,511
Speaker 3: Pavel du supposedly has fathered two hundred kids around the world.

797
00:44:02,511 --> 00:44:06,872
Speaker 3: He is like a pro natalist guy, and he he'd

798
00:44:06,911 --> 00:44:10,471
Speaker 3: set up Telegram deliberately to be unsubpoenable, like it's the

799
00:44:10,551 --> 00:44:13,432
Speaker 3: Shell companies. Within Shell companies, it's registered in the British

800
00:44:13,511 --> 00:44:17,192
Speaker 3: Virgin Islands and Dubai, and within those websites, you know,

801
00:44:17,792 --> 00:44:21,232
Speaker 3: a new network kind of formed called Terragram that was

802
00:44:21,471 --> 00:44:24,832
Speaker 3: very much relied on what happened in christ Church as

803
00:44:24,832 --> 00:44:27,232
Speaker 3: a core part of its propaganda. So they created a,

804
00:44:27,471 --> 00:44:30,511
Speaker 3: for example, a pantheon of saints. This is something that

805
00:44:30,872 --> 00:44:34,471
Speaker 3: Islamic extremists had had the wide extremists had not yet had,

806
00:44:34,511 --> 00:44:38,872
Speaker 3: which was a culture of martyrdom. Tarrant was seen very much,

807
00:44:39,192 --> 00:44:42,272
Speaker 3: along with Anders Bravict for the Oslo terrorist as the

808
00:44:42,431 --> 00:44:45,992
Speaker 3: original state in the pantheon, and it encouraged other users

809
00:44:46,112 --> 00:44:48,872
Speaker 3: to carry out similar acts in order to be added

810
00:44:48,951 --> 00:44:51,832
Speaker 3: to this pantheon, you know, to be venerated and respected

811
00:44:51,872 --> 00:44:55,471
Speaker 3: by this community. And that absolutely happened. So it's It's

812
00:44:55,592 --> 00:44:57,832
Speaker 3: wild how Tarrent was both a kind of a product

813
00:44:57,991 --> 00:45:01,151
Speaker 3: of the propaganda in these communities, but then he also

814
00:45:01,232 --> 00:45:04,431
Speaker 3: became propaganda in him in himself.

815
00:45:04,911 --> 00:45:08,272
Speaker 1: The whole purpose of your podcast is to show that

816
00:45:08,632 --> 00:45:14,631
Speaker 1: whilst we see Tarrent as a lone terrorist, as someone

817
00:45:14,632 --> 00:45:18,352
Speaker 1: who did this purely off their own back, that in reality,

818
00:45:18,991 --> 00:45:21,511
Speaker 1: he had hundreds, if not thousands of people with him

819
00:45:21,551 --> 00:45:23,192
Speaker 1: that day. There were those who had that link and

820
00:45:23,272 --> 00:45:26,031
Speaker 1: watch that live stream. There were those who had helped

821
00:45:26,112 --> 00:45:29,431
Speaker 1: radicalize him, who had even down to showing him how

822
00:45:29,471 --> 00:45:32,191
Speaker 1: to modify the weapons that he used on that day.

823
00:45:33,672 --> 00:45:36,472
Speaker 2: Do we then presume that when we see any.

824
00:45:36,352 --> 00:45:39,911
Speaker 1: Other reports of loan terror attacks or loan gunmen, or

825
00:45:40,792 --> 00:45:45,352
Speaker 1: someone who acts seemingly off their own back, that potentially

826
00:45:45,431 --> 00:45:53,752
Speaker 1: there's always a community of thousands involved in that person planning, creating, training,

827
00:45:54,031 --> 00:45:57,072
Speaker 1: and then taking actual action in the real world.

828
00:45:57,312 --> 00:45:59,992
Speaker 3: I don't think so. I think there definitely are actors

829
00:46:00,031 --> 00:46:03,632
Speaker 3: of that. There definitely are instances where violence is truly

830
00:46:03,792 --> 00:46:06,832
Speaker 3: sort of committed on a loan actor level. Right For example,

831
00:46:07,152 --> 00:46:09,872
Speaker 3: I would say it would be difficult to pin the

832
00:46:10,592 --> 00:46:14,031
Speaker 3: bond a junction stabbing to any sort of larger ideology

833
00:46:14,392 --> 00:46:16,991
Speaker 3: in the same way. I think the Port Arthur massacre, right,

834
00:46:17,112 --> 00:46:18,992
Speaker 3: this was a guy that was had a long history

835
00:46:19,031 --> 00:46:22,991
Speaker 3: of being psychologically disturbed. He wasn't connected to any broader ecosystem.

836
00:46:23,431 --> 00:46:26,232
Speaker 3: But I think what we're talking about is is a

837
00:46:26,312 --> 00:46:30,832
Speaker 3: specific subsection of mash shooters, which is you know, far

838
00:46:30,991 --> 00:46:34,312
Speaker 3: right terrorism. And I think in those cases it's becoming

839
00:46:34,352 --> 00:46:39,671
Speaker 3: increasingly clear that they are borrowing from a deeper ideology.

840
00:46:40,112 --> 00:46:44,031
Speaker 3: And it's always an extremely difficult thing to know, you know,

841
00:46:44,152 --> 00:46:46,991
Speaker 3: in the black box of the human mind, where the

842
00:46:47,112 --> 00:46:52,071
Speaker 3: ideology begins and where the proclivity to violence or the well,

843
00:46:52,112 --> 00:46:54,591
Speaker 3: you know what researchers would call the pool factors, the

844
00:46:54,672 --> 00:46:58,591
Speaker 3: push factors towards extremism begin. But I think in this

845
00:46:58,832 --> 00:47:02,911
Speaker 3: case specifically, and indeed I think in definitely in other cases,

846
00:47:03,471 --> 00:47:08,792
Speaker 3: the explanatory value of those communities, like they it's pretty

847
00:47:08,832 --> 00:47:11,832
Speaker 3: much undeniable. But yeah, it's really difficult, and it's becoming

848
00:47:11,911 --> 00:47:14,192
Speaker 3: more and I think it's becoming more and more difficult.

849
00:47:14,272 --> 00:47:17,352
Speaker 3: Like going back to that terogram designation last week, right,

850
00:47:17,832 --> 00:47:20,791
Speaker 3: Like we used to have a clear kind of sense

851
00:47:20,872 --> 00:47:23,792
Speaker 3: of what a terrorist organization looked like and in the

852
00:47:23,832 --> 00:47:25,792
Speaker 3: period leading up to christ Church it kind of starts

853
00:47:25,832 --> 00:47:28,112
Speaker 3: to break down. I mean, we mentioned how one of

854
00:47:28,152 --> 00:47:30,272
Speaker 3: the former members of Adam Woffin told me how the

855
00:47:30,312 --> 00:47:32,872
Speaker 3: group was centralized but also decentralized. So they did have

856
00:47:32,991 --> 00:47:35,232
Speaker 3: something that looked like that, Like they did train together,

857
00:47:35,632 --> 00:47:38,352
Speaker 3: they did create propaganda strategically, they did kind of organize

858
00:47:38,352 --> 00:47:40,112
Speaker 3: a little bit across state lines in the US and

859
00:47:40,152 --> 00:47:42,352
Speaker 3: a little bit in Australia. But also the purpose of

860
00:47:42,392 --> 00:47:44,591
Speaker 3: the group was to go beyond the group. It was

861
00:47:44,792 --> 00:47:47,112
Speaker 3: it was really to inspire people to go, you know,

862
00:47:47,312 --> 00:47:50,752
Speaker 3: to use their language. Guns are blazing, even if that

863
00:47:50,872 --> 00:47:53,111
Speaker 3: meant on the other side of the world. And then

864
00:47:53,392 --> 00:47:55,551
Speaker 3: now it's become sort of even more and morphous. We

865
00:47:55,712 --> 00:47:59,832
Speaker 3: have a thing like like terogram. All it really is

866
00:48:00,352 --> 00:48:02,832
Speaker 3: is like a bunch of chats like it's it really

867
00:48:02,951 --> 00:48:05,111
Speaker 3: is like a bunch of chats that you can kind

868
00:48:05,152 --> 00:48:10,552
Speaker 3: of access on your smart It has no discernible leadership structure.

869
00:48:10,551 --> 00:48:12,432
Speaker 3: I mean, there have been some people that have arrested

870
00:48:12,511 --> 00:48:15,591
Speaker 3: for particular incitements to violence, but it doesn't have any

871
00:48:15,632 --> 00:48:18,551
Speaker 3: discernible leadership structure. It's not even clear you know, what

872
00:48:18,872 --> 00:48:21,752
Speaker 3: is a specific terogram chat and what isn't. And now

873
00:48:21,832 --> 00:48:24,031
Speaker 3: we're saying, you know that in Australia people could be

874
00:48:24,072 --> 00:48:25,591
Speaker 3: charged for up to twenty five years in jail for

875
00:48:25,672 --> 00:48:28,232
Speaker 3: being a member of Terogram. But you know, I wonder

876
00:48:28,272 --> 00:48:30,431
Speaker 3: and it really is interesting that happened last week because

877
00:48:30,431 --> 00:48:32,352
Speaker 3: it speaks to the kind of complexity of this loan

878
00:48:32,431 --> 00:48:33,991
Speaker 3: actor thing. It's like, well, you know, what does it

879
00:48:34,072 --> 00:48:35,792
Speaker 3: mean to be a member of Tereogram. I mean, there

880
00:48:35,792 --> 00:48:38,152
Speaker 3: are a bunch of chats you know, on your on

881
00:48:38,232 --> 00:48:39,152
Speaker 3: your smartphone, so.

882
00:48:39,592 --> 00:48:41,752
Speaker 1: And there's a bunch of researchers and journalists and all

883
00:48:41,832 --> 00:48:42,352
Speaker 1: kinds of people.

884
00:48:43,511 --> 00:48:46,352
Speaker 3: Sure, sure, yeah, we hope. I mean that's why. Yeah,

885
00:48:46,392 --> 00:48:48,671
Speaker 3: And I guess that goes back to your question before.

886
00:48:48,752 --> 00:48:51,752
Speaker 3: It's like, you know, as a researcher, I do infiltrate

887
00:48:51,792 --> 00:48:54,071
Speaker 3: this base, So I do have you know, pseudonyms that

888
00:48:54,112 --> 00:48:56,911
Speaker 3: I use on these sites. And it is alarming how

889
00:48:57,152 --> 00:49:00,872
Speaker 3: kind of easy it is still now to be able

890
00:49:00,911 --> 00:49:04,551
Speaker 3: to access so terror related material, you know, just like

891
00:49:04,911 --> 00:49:06,232
Speaker 3: you know, right now, I could do it right now,

892
00:49:06,632 --> 00:49:09,352
Speaker 3: sittings sitting across from you. So yeah, it's a really

893
00:49:09,511 --> 00:49:13,192
Speaker 3: it's a really difficult environment. And I don't envy the

894
00:49:13,312 --> 00:49:16,152
Speaker 3: role that intelligence agencies need to play in trying to

895
00:49:16,672 --> 00:49:19,712
Speaker 3: monitor this space. It certainly is not nothing like what

896
00:49:19,832 --> 00:49:20,272
Speaker 3: it used to be.

897
00:49:20,832 --> 00:49:23,392
Speaker 1: I think many of us are familiar with what happened

898
00:49:24,112 --> 00:49:27,631
Speaker 1: on that day in twenty nineteen. I mean some people

899
00:49:27,672 --> 00:49:30,272
Speaker 1: have even seen it, having seen the live stream. I've

900
00:49:30,312 --> 00:49:34,232
Speaker 1: never actually looked at it. We know that more than

901
00:49:34,272 --> 00:49:37,352
Speaker 1: fifty people died that day, and potentially could have been more.

902
00:49:37,392 --> 00:49:39,511
Speaker 1: As you mentioned, he was intercepted potentially on his way

903
00:49:39,511 --> 00:49:41,192
Speaker 1: to a third mosque when he was run off the

904
00:49:41,232 --> 00:49:45,672
Speaker 1: road by police. But do you think a lot of

905
00:49:45,792 --> 00:49:48,752
Speaker 1: lessons were learned after that day? I mean it definitely

906
00:49:48,872 --> 00:49:50,872
Speaker 1: rocked New Zealand to its core because it was so

907
00:49:51,112 --> 00:49:56,191
Speaker 1: unexpected and they weren't aware at you know, Tarrent having

908
00:49:56,312 --> 00:49:59,592
Speaker 1: potentially taken advantage of their lax gun laws compared to Australia,

909
00:49:59,632 --> 00:50:02,071
Speaker 1: for example, So there was a Royal commission, there were

910
00:50:02,152 --> 00:50:04,792
Speaker 1: changes to gun laws. Do you think the things that

911
00:50:04,951 --> 00:50:08,792
Speaker 1: happened in the wake of that christ Church attack have

912
00:50:09,031 --> 00:50:12,031
Speaker 1: gone any ways to potentially stopping it from happening again?

913
00:50:12,551 --> 00:50:16,152
Speaker 3: I really hope. So. I worry about the fact that

914
00:50:16,232 --> 00:50:18,752
Speaker 3: Australia had distanced itself so much from the attack, and

915
00:50:18,832 --> 00:50:21,272
Speaker 3: the fact that it happened in New Zealand meant that

916
00:50:21,471 --> 00:50:24,031
Speaker 3: New Zealand agencies really had to bear the brunt of

917
00:50:24,112 --> 00:50:26,752
Speaker 3: responsibility for the attack, and so much of the analysis

918
00:50:27,152 --> 00:50:30,031
Speaker 3: that's publicly available is about their role, you know, what

919
00:50:30,232 --> 00:50:33,232
Speaker 3: they had missed. But really, you know, New Zealand was

920
00:50:33,272 --> 00:50:35,872
Speaker 3: the setting, but actually had very very little to do

921
00:50:36,511 --> 00:50:39,511
Speaker 3: with what happened in christ Church.

922
00:50:39,832 --> 00:50:41,152
Speaker 2: They were just the last destination.

923
00:50:41,232 --> 00:50:43,431
Speaker 3: There were the last destination and gun laws and an

924
00:50:43,471 --> 00:50:46,432
Speaker 3: exception to that, and just sinda Idern sort of like Howard.

925
00:50:46,672 --> 00:50:49,792
Speaker 3: John Howard had after Poort Arthur passed gun law reform

926
00:50:50,112 --> 00:50:52,111
Speaker 3: to make it more difficult to access things like semi

927
00:50:52,152 --> 00:50:55,512
Speaker 3: automatic weapons in New Zealand, and those I mean apparently

928
00:50:55,551 --> 00:50:58,031
Speaker 3: are being contested in New Zealand Parliament now and there

929
00:50:58,031 --> 00:51:00,752
Speaker 3: are people who who you know, as they often are

930
00:51:00,872 --> 00:51:04,312
Speaker 3: with gun legislation, it has become you know, within the

931
00:51:04,352 --> 00:51:08,911
Speaker 3: realm of controversial unfortunate. But in Australia, like I don't know,

932
00:51:09,031 --> 00:51:13,072
Speaker 3: there wasn't much of a response, both socially and culturally

933
00:51:13,112 --> 00:51:15,911
Speaker 3: as we said, but also in institutionally. I mean, we

934
00:51:16,031 --> 00:51:18,631
Speaker 3: never had an inquiry here as to what had led

935
00:51:18,712 --> 00:51:23,872
Speaker 3: him to violence. I mean, it's a societal wide problem

936
00:51:23,951 --> 00:51:26,872
Speaker 3: and something that I think will need to be addressed.

937
00:51:26,951 --> 00:51:31,951
Speaker 3: And while I sincerely hope that something like christ Church

938
00:51:31,991 --> 00:51:34,471
Speaker 3: would never happen again, I think there's a lot of

939
00:51:34,511 --> 00:51:38,151
Speaker 3: feeling within the community that within the research community specifically

940
00:51:38,232 --> 00:51:42,711
Speaker 3: that christ Church wouldn't might not necessarily be the last

941
00:51:42,752 --> 00:51:45,031
Speaker 3: time something like this happens, and I just hope that

942
00:51:45,431 --> 00:51:46,951
Speaker 3: we're in a position to be able to stop it

943
00:51:47,031 --> 00:51:47,631
Speaker 3: before it does.

944
00:51:51,312 --> 00:51:53,752
Speaker 1: Thank you to Joey for helping us tell this story today.

945
00:51:53,872 --> 00:51:56,031
Speaker 1: There's a link to his podcast, Loan Actor in the

946
00:51:56,112 --> 00:51:59,752
Speaker 1: show notes. True Crime Conversations is a podcast hosted by

947
00:51:59,872 --> 00:52:03,312
Speaker 1: me Claire Murphy and produced by Tarlie Blackman, with audio

948
00:52:03,392 --> 00:52:06,511
Speaker 1: designed by Jacob Brown. Thanks so much for listening. I'll

949
00:52:06,551 --> 00:52:09,352
Speaker 1: be back next week with another True Crime Conversation.