A 48-year-old man may very well have saved several lives after he on Friday confronted a perpetrator, who was on the way to Linwood mosque in Christchurch to continue a bloody attack.
the Perpetrator had shot 42 people in the Masjid al Noor mosque, before he drove about five miles over to the Linwood property.
the 48-year-old Abdul Aziz was for Friday prayer in the mosque. Here he saw a man dressed in black militærtøj and with a gun.
At first he thought that there was a policeman.
– But it dawned on me that it was something else. This here was a killer, ” says Aziz, who is originally from Kabul, Afghanistan.
Aziz asked the congregation in the mosque to lie on the ground.
he Then took hold of the first and the best he could find – a small terminal for card payment – and ran out in front of the mosque and cried, “come an!”.
As the offender ran back to his car to retrieve a new weapon, threw Aziz ped against him.
the Offender returned and shot against Aziz, who hid among the parked cars. Here he found a gun that the perpetrator had thrown away.
Aziz total it up and pulled the trigger, but it was empty.
the Offender returned again to his car.
He climbed into his car, and then I took the gun and threw it at his window and smashed his window, he says.
Then drove the offender away, while Aziz continued to chase him. Shortly after the car was stopped by the police.
The 28-year-old australian Brenton Tarrant is accused of being behind the attacks.
Abdul Aziz fled from Afghanistan to Australia as a boy. Here he lived for more than 25 years, before he moved to New Zealand a few years ago.
Latef Alabi, who is the imam of Linwood mosque, saying that Aziz’s actions probably saved all the people present in the mosque.
the Perpetrator managed to kill seven people at the mosque.