Apology over NZ mosque accused’s ‘hateful’ letter

WELLINGTON: Officials in New Zealand apologised Thursday after the alleged Christchurch mosque gunman was allowed to send a letter from prison espousing "hateful" views that a supporter then shared online.

Australian Brenton Tarrant is in a maximum-security jail in Auckland awaiting trial for the murder of 51 Muslim worshippers on March 15 in the worst mass shooting in modern New Zealand history.

Yet despite the government vowing to deny Tarrant a platform to disseminate hate speech, corrections officials revealed he had been allowed to send mail from his prison cell.

One of the letters from the self-avowed white supremacist, addressed to a Russian man named Alan, was posted to the website 4Chan.