New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern has said her office was among several recipients of a so-called manifesto by the suspected Christchurch gunman just minutes before the first shots were fired.
Ms Ardern told reporters a copy of the document was emailed to her office nine minutes before the mosque attacks began.
She said: “I was one of more than 30 recipients of a manifesto that was mailed out nine minutes before the attack took place.
“It did not include location. It did not include specific details.
“Within two minutes of receipt it was conveyed directly to parliamentary security.
“Had it provided details that could have been acted on immediately it would have been, but unfortunately there were no such details in the email.”
She added: “The fact that there was an ideological manifesto with extreme views attached to this attack is, of course, deeply disturbing.”
A 74-page manifesto, believed to have been written by suspect Brenton Tarrant, was posted online and outlined his anti-immigrant motives.
It features a series of questions and answers, and opens with one asking: “Who are you?”
The answer says: “Just a ordinary White man, 28 years old. Born in Australia to a working class, low income family.
“My parents are of Scottish, Irish and English stock. I had a regular childhood, without any great issues. I had little interest in education during my schooling, barely achieving a passing grade.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article