Christchurch shooting: gunman Brenton Tarrant’s roaming on the dark side

Brenton Tarrant’s surviving social media connections reveal evidence of years of links with right-wing ideologues.

Marcus Christensen with a mural showing British fascist leader Oswald Mosley at his business at Burleigh Heads on the Gold Coast. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

There are few remaining clues of Brenton Tarrant’s social media connections, but the fragments online reveal evidence of years of links with right-wing ideologues, including to a Gold Coast machinist who admired 1930s fascist ­Oswald Mosley.

Tarrant wrote a five-star ­review on Facebook of 24-year-old Burleigh Heads machinist Marcus Christensen’s business.

Mr Christensen said yesterday he may have had an online conversation with Tarrant, but he could not be sure.

In the underground world of right-wing social media, on mainstream sites, but also platforms on the dark web such as 8chan, ­pseudonyms are used to hide true identities.

“I don’t know him directly,” Mr Christensen told The Australian. “As far as I’m aware, people I knew knew of him.

“But apparently he’s been in the community for over two years, in that sort of fringe far-right ­community.

“The vast majority of these people want to keep to themselves and want to have their own community. They don’t want to go around shooting up mosques.”

Mr Christensen has a mural of British fascist leader Mosley — who Tarrant claimed as his hero — on the wall of his Gold Coast workshop.

Tarrant shared videos of ­Mosley on his social media ­accounts in the days before ­Friday’s attack and ­described the fascist figure as “the person from history closest to my own beliefs” in his “manifesto”.

Mr Christensen describes himself as an “eco-fascist”, a term that Tarrant also references in his document. Asked what he meant by that label, Mr Christensen said he was passionate about the environment and referenced his solar-powered business. But when pressed on whether or not he identified with the racist theories behind eco-fascism — long assoc­iated with the Nazis — he said “we would have to sit down and talk about it”.

Little remains of Tarrant’s ­activity on his Facebook account, which was deleted after he live-streamed his attack on Friday.

Tarrant also connected with a Texas-based construction company, whose page was deleted after the attack. The owners of the business did not respond to phone calls or messages.

Tarrant also endorsed a 2016 post by a separate Brisbane-based neo-Nazi that claimed the downfall of “Europa” was due to “women and aliens” being allowed to vote. The post was published well before his claimed 2017 radicalisation, which Tarrant described in his bizarre “manifesto”.

Mr Christensen, who said he had watched the video of the ­attack and was familiar with parts of the manifesto, said Tarrant’s ­alleged actions had “dirtied” his political beliefs.

“I don’t believe that that was an appropriate thing to do. I think that’s a terrible thing he’s done. I condemn what he did.”

He said he couldn’t explain how Tarrant would have come to review his business.

“If it’s the profile I think it was, he stopped posting on that to my knowledge, or I stopped seeing anything, over a year ago,” he said.

Tarrant had used the Facebook account under a pseudonym, but reverted the account to his own name when he used it to stream his rampage.

He had shared the account’s details on the notorious internet forum 8chan, where he appeared to have a regular presence, and told other users of his plans to live-stream his alleged attack shortly before the shooting began.

Within minutes, 8chan users were praising him — with some seemingly expressing familiarity by calling him “BT”. Others expressed fears his actions would see the end of the 8chan community.

Mr Christensen said those he knew from far-right circles were now worried about the consequences of increased scrutiny of their activities.

“If anything, everyone’s panicking, ‘Oh God, this is the worst possible thing that could have happened’,” he said.

The NSW Joint Counter Terrorism Team yesterday executed search warrants at the homes of Tarrant’s mother, Sharon, and sister Lauren, who have been helping police since Friday. There is no suggestion his family had any involvement in his actions.

Tarrant is believed to have been based in New Zealand since 2017, and had not been in Australia for several months.

On Facebook, Tarrant had ­detailed travels throughout the world after he received an inheritance following his father’s death. He shared videos of animals in an African savannah, soldiers in eastern Asia and North Korea, Pakistani mountain ranges and European castles. More recently, he uploaded videos about population trends and one depicting a cartoon koala setting fire to a building

His grandmother said he had “changed completely” from the “boy we knew” since he left his hometown of Grafton as a young man.

New Zealand Police Commissioner Mike Bush said it was ­alleged Tarrant was solely responsible for the deaths, but an “international” investigation was looking into whether other individuals had given him support.

“That doesn’t mean there weren’t possibly other people in support, and that continues to form a very, very important part of our investigation,” he said.