"It's my submission that this court needs to be very careful to sentence Mr. The judge said Arps had argued he had a right to distribute the video under the banner of freedom to pursue his political beliefs.Īrps' lawyer Anselm Williams told the judge that Arps should not be sent to prison. The teen is accused of sharing the video and an image of the Al Noor mosque with the words "target acquired." He is next due to appear in court on July 31. An 18-year-old was jailed in March while the others weren't kept in custody. In other cases, at least five other people were also charged with illegally sharing the shooting video. Under New Zealand laws aimed at preventing the distribution of objectionable material, Arps faced up to 14 years imprisonment on each count.
The judge said Arps also asked somebody to insert crosshairs and include a kill count in order to create an internet meme, although there was no evidence he'd shared the meme. O'Driscoll said Arps had sent the video to 30 associates.
"Your offending glorifies and encourages the mass murder carried out under the pretext of religious and racial hatred," the judge said. The judge said Arps had compared himself to Rudolf Hess, a Nazi leader under Adolf Hitler. The judge said Arps had strong and unrepentant views about the Muslim community and had, in effect, committed a hate crime. Philip Arps had earlier pleaded guilty to two counts of distributing the video, which was livestreamed on Facebook by a gunman on March 15 as he began killing 51 people at two mosques.Ĭhristchurch District Court Judge Stephen O'Driscoll said that when questioned about the video, Arps had described it as "awesome" and had shown no empathy toward the victims.
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