Canberra is “open” to Australian sentenced in New Zealand to life in Christchurch mosques massacre to be returned to his homeland to serve his sentence, the prime minister said on Friday Scott Morrison.
White supremacist Brenton Tarrant was sentenced to life in prison on Thursday without parole for murdering 51 Muslim worshipers in 2019 at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand.
Shortly after the conviction, New Zealand Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters ruled that Mr Tarrant, 29, should be transferred to an Australian prison.
“The Muslim community and all of New Zealand have already suffered enough that they do not have to pay astronomical sums to be safe in our prison system,” said Peters.
The Australian Prime Minister said he had not received a request for a possible transfer of the killer from mosques but said he was ready to discuss it with his New Zealand counterpart Jacinda Ardern.
“Whether he is detained in Australia or New Zealand, we are open to discussion,” Peters said on Seven News.
“The Prime Minister of New Zealand and I will talk about it” and a possible decision will be taken taking into account, as a priority, “the wishes of the survivors and the families of the victims”.
Mr Tarrant, a former fitness instructor who grew up in the small town of Grafton, had moved to New Zealand in 2017 before planning an attack on the Muslim community very quickly.
Government documents show that Mr. Tarrant’s imprisonment will cost NZ $ 4,900 per day, compared to NZ $ 302 for an ordinary inmate.
According to the documents, “he is likely to have needs and pose an unprecedented risk” to New Zealand.
The Australian supremascist has already caused problems for prison authorities, writing a letter, published in August 2019 by an extremist site.
In the latter, Mr Tarrant praised the British fascist Oswald Mosley and said “a great conflict is looming on the horizon”.
Corrections had apologized and promised that this would not happen again.
Mr Tarrant is expected to be placed in New Zealand’s only high security prison, located in Auckland. He should be kept in solitary confinement there to ensure his own safety.