New Zealand man sentenced to 21 months in prison for sharing mosque killings video online

Flowers and tributes at The Al Noor mosque following the shootings in Christchurch, New Zealand, on March 22, 2019. PHOTO: AFP

WELLINGTON (XINHUA, DPA) - A New Zealand man who admitted to redistributing the livestream video of the Christchurch terror attack was sentenced to 21 months in prison on Tuesday (June 18).

Philip Arps, who runs a company that uses neo-Nazi imagery, pleaded guilty in April to two charges of distributing objectionable material.

The 44-year-old admitted that the day after the mosque killings, he had sent away the video to have it modified with cross-hairs and a "kill count," and distributed the unmodified video to 30 people.

Tuesday morning in the Christchurch District Court, judge Stephen O'Driscoll said when Arps was asked for his opinion of the video, he said it was "awesome". Because of Arps' extreme ideological outlook, there was no prospect of his rehabilitation and his sentence should rule out home detention, said the judge.

Arps also faces six months of post-release conditions when he must attend psychological assessment, no access the internet and undergo assessment and counselling for alcohol and drug use.

Judge O'Driscoll said Arps wanted to glorify the deaths of members of the Muslim community and any sentence short of imprisonment would not be appropriate.

Arps is the owner of a company called Beneficial Insulation that uses a sunwheel, or black sun, as its logo, which is commonly used by neo-Nazis. The company states that it charges 14.88 NZ dollars per metre for insulation, a reference to a white supremacist slogan and to Adolf Hitler.

The company's full name is Beneficial Insulation Installs Guaranteed, shortened to BIIg, which is also the name of a barracks at the Auschwitz concentration camp.

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