Accused gunman Brenton Tarrant flashed the white power sign during his court appearance.
Brenton Harrison Tarrant, 28, placed some landmines in his self-styled manifesto, The Great Replacement, for the media. Knowing the news organizations would dive deeply into it, he placed false blame in the document, to a point finger in misdirection. For example, he cited conservative activist Candace Owens as his "biggest influence," but this clearly appeared to not be the case.
Tarrant was broadcasting "news" and "messages" to his fellow white supremacists. His weapon, backpack, and manifesto were filled with direct twilight language to those in the know.
The writing on the rifle related to the following:
Serbian Milos Obilic, who assassinated Ottoman Sultan Murad I at the end of the Kosovo War in 1389. The terrorist had written Obilic's name on his gun in Cyrillic letters.Also on the rifle:
Marco Antonio Bragadin, a Venetian commander who fought against the Ottoman Empire in Cyprus in 1571. He was captured by the Ottoman forces soon after he had killed Turkish hostages with different torture methods such as cutting their ears and noses. Bragadin was hanged to death for his crimes.
Ernst Rudiger von Starhemberg, a military commander of Vienna who fought against the Ottoman troops in the Second Siege of Vienna.
Feliks Kazimiers Potocki, a Polish soldier who also fight against the Ottoman Turks in the Siege of Vienna.
Skanderberg, an Albanian leader who was responsible for an uprising against the Ottoman Empire.
Charles Martel, a Frankish statesman and military leader who stopped the Islamic Caliphate from conquering a significant part of Europe, forcing it back to Spain in 732.
Josue Estebanez, a Spanish neo-Nazi who became a ‘hero’ for neo-Nazis for killing 16-year-old leftist activist Carlos Palomino, by stabbing him in Madrid in 2007.
Alexandre Bissonnette, a white supremacist who also attacked a mosque in Canada and killed six worshippers in January 2017.
Anton Lundin Pettersson, who killed two migrant students in October 2015, in Sweden. Source.
'Here's Your Migration Compact!' refers to the much-criticised non-binding UN agreement that seeks to establish a common global approach to international migration.Remember, this is horror revealed. Don't forget that. The workings of the homicidal mind to justify carnage.
John Hunyadi was a Hungarian military leader who ruled the country between 1446 and 1456 and led the national struggle against the Turks.
'14 Words' (the number is repainted in several places on the ammo) is a nod to the 14-word white supremacist slogan derived from Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf: "We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children".
'Tours 732' refers to the Battle of Tours in 732. Frankish military leader Charles Martel pushed back the last Arab invasion of Western Europe.
'Turkofagos' ('Turk-eater' in Greek) was the nickname of Nikitas Stamatelopoulos, one of the main heroes of the Greek War of Independence waged by revolutionaries against the Ottomans between 1821 and 1829.
On the other side of the stock, there's also a marking reading 'Anton Lundin Pettersson' — the attacker who fatally stabbed a teaching assistant and a student and wounded two other people in what police described as a racially charged incident. He later succumbed to the gunshot wounds he received during his apprehension. Source.
Throughout the manifesto, the theme he returns to most often is conflict between people of European descent and Muslims, often framing it in terms of the Crusades.
He wrote that the episode that pushed him toward violence took place in 2017 while he was touring through Western Europe. That was when an Uzbek man drove a truck into a crowd of people in Stockholm, killing five. The Australian was particularly enraged by the death of an 11-year-old Swedish girl in the attack.
He said his desire for violence grew when he arrived in France, where he became enraged by the sight of immigrants in the cities and towns he visited.
And so he began to plot his attack. Three months ago, he started planning to target Christchurch. He claimed not to be a direct member of any organization or group, though he said he has donated to many nationalist groups. He also claimed he contacted an anti-immigration group called the reborn Knights Templar and got the blessing of Anders Breivik for the attack.
Breivik is a right-wing Norwegian extremist who killed 77 people in Oslo and a nearby island in 2011. Breivik's lawyer Oeystein Storrvik told Norway's VG newspaper that his client, who is in prison, has 'very limited contacts with the surrounding world, so it seems very unlikely that he has had contact' with the New Zealand gunman. Source.
One picture on the suspected shooter's now deleted Twitter page included the Black Sun symbol which is used in Satanism and neo-Nazism.
Also on his gear:
Josur Estrbanez was a then-22-year-old Spanish neo-Nazi who fatally stabbed 16-year-old anti-fascist protester in 2007. He was sentenced to 26 years in prison two years later.
Milos Obilic was a semi-legendary knight who is said to have killed Ottoman sultan Murad I in the Battle of Kosovo in 1389. He has been venerated as a saint in the Serbian Church.
Sigismund of Luxembourg was a European noble who ruled the Holy Roman Empire in 1433-1437. He led the Crusade of Nicopolis, the last major crusade of the Middle Ages, which failed to liberate Bulgaria from the Ottoman rule in 1396.
Feliks Kazimierz Potocki was a Polish commander, known as one of the country's richest noblemen of his time, who fought with the Ottomans and Tatars in the second half of the 17th century.
Iosif Gurko was a Russian marshal credited with a series of victories in the Russo-Ottoman War of 1877-1878.
'Vienna 1683' refers to the Battle of Vienna which is considered to be a watershed moment in the Holy Roman Empire's centuries-long struggle with the Ottomans. After losing this battle, the Ottoman Empire no longer posed a threat to Christian Europe until its collapse in WW1.
'Acre 1189' is a reference to two the sieges of Acre, an ancient city today located in Israel. The first siege lasted from 1189 until 1191, and saw the king of the crusader-controlled Jerusalem repel Ottoman ruler Saladin.
"For Rotherdam" refers to the child sexual exploitation scandal in the UK, wherein a British-Pakistani gang was convicted of sexually abusing at least 1,400 children between 1997 and 2013.
Alexandre Bissonnette was the gunman who received a life sentence for killing six people at a Quebec mosque in January 2017.
Luca Traini is an Italian neo-Nazi sympathizer who injured six African migrants in a shooting rampage in February 2017 and was sentenced to 12 years in prison.
The Battle of Kagul of 1770 (written in Russian) was the key battle of the Russian-Ottoman War of 1768-1774, which saw Russian troops achieve a decisive victory over overwhelming Turkish forces.
Bajo Pivljanin is a popular figure in Serbian epic poetry. He was a Serb commander who fought against the Ottomans in the second half of the 17thcentury.
Fruzhin was a Bulgarian prince who headed an uprising against Ottoman rule in the early 15th century.
The Battle of Bulair of 1913 was part of the First Balkan War; it saw Bulgarians defeat an Ottoman infantry division.
Sebastiano Venier was a 16th-century Venetian ruler who headed the city's fleet in the Fourth Ottoman-Venetian War. He is perhaps best known as the admiral at the Battle of Lepanto of 1571, which saw the fleet of the so-called Holy League (an alliance of Christian states) deliver a stunning defeat to the Ottoman Empire off the Greek coast.
Shipka Pass was a strategic path through the Balkan Mountains; joint Russian-Bulgarian forces successfully repulsed a series of attacks by the Ottoman army in 1877-1888, during the war which eventually led to the liberation of Bulgaria from the Ottoman Empire.
Novak Vujošević was the hero of the Battle of Fundina against the Ottoman Empire's forces, who is believed to have killed 28 enemy soldiers. Source.
Some of the references are foggy, but Tarrant has the world's media attempting to figure them out.
For Georgians, the references are perplexing and worrying....
One of the two Georgian names is a king known to nearly all Georgian schoolchildren: David IV, or David the Builder. Formally known as Davit Aghmashenebeli in Georgian, he was ruler of the Christian kingdom in the 12th century when it was attacked by the armies of the Seljuk Empire, an empire of various Muslim communities that, at its height, stretched from the Aegean Sea to what is today northern Afghanistan.
At the Battle of Didgori, the Georgian army defeated much larger Seljuk forces in 1121, and led the way for Georgia to expand its own kingdom between the Caspian and Black seas. The victory is called "miraculous" in Georgian, and its literature and culture is littered with references to the event.
The second name was David Soslan, who was a military leader and husband of the Georgian queen at the time, Tamar. He played a key role in leading Georgian forces in battles several decades later, against Islamic forces at Shamkor -- in what is today's Azerbaijan -- and Basian- in what is today's Turkey.
David Soslan is not nearly so well known in Georgian culture, possibly because he wasn't considered as royal as his wife, but also because, according to some sources, he was ethnically Ossetian, another ethnic group living in close proximity to Georgia and Russia.
How the two Georgian leaders became associated with the white nationalism of the New Zealand gunman wasn't immediately clear.
Source.
Though [Tarrant] claimed not to be a Nazi, in the video he livestreamed of the shooting the number 14 is seen on his rifle. That may be a reference to the '14 Words,' a white supremacist slogan attributed in part to Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.
He also used the symbol of the Schwarze Sonne, or black sun, which 'has become synonymous with myriad far-right groups who traffic in neo-Nazi,' according to the center.
His victims, he wrote, were chosen because he saw them as invaders who would replace the white race. He predicted he would feel no remorse for their deaths. And in the video he livestreamed of his shooting, no remorse can be seen or heard. Instead, he simply says: 'Let's get this party started.'
Then he picks up his gun, storms into the mosque, and cuts down one innocent life after another.
When it is over, he climbs back into his car, where he has left his music playing — the song Fire by the English rock band The Crazy World of Arthur Brown. And right after the singer bellows, 'I am the god of hellfire!' the gunman drives away.
Source.
