Man sentenced to prison after sharing New Zealand mosque shootings video

A New Zealand man who shared a video of the Christchurch mosque shootings was reportedly sentenced on Tuesday to 21 months in prison.

Philip Neville Arps, 44, was sentenced in the Christchurch District Court after he pleaded guilty to two charges of distributing objectionable material, according to CNN.

{mosads}Arps had sent the video — which the gunman livestreamed on Facebook as he killed 51 people at two mosques — to about 30 associates not long after the attacks, the network noted.

Judge Stephen O’Driscoll said Arps described the video as “awesome” and compared himself to Rudolf Hess, a Nazi leader who served under Adolf Hitler, according to The Associated Press, which added O’Driscoll said Arps’s views toward the Muslim community had, more or less, constituted a hate crime.

“Your offending glorifies and encourages the mass murder carried out under the pretext of religious and racial hatred. It is clear from all the material before me that you have strong and unrepentant views towards the Muslim community,” O’Driscoll said, according to RNZ.

Arps, who owns an insulation company that uses a Nazi logo, asked someone to include a kill count so they could make an internet meme, the AP reports.

Arps’s lawyer said his client filed an appeal Tuesday, calling his sentence “too stern,” CNN reports. Under New Zealand law, each count of the charge carries a prison sentence of up to 14 years.

An 18-year-old and a 16-year-old have also been charged in connection with distributing the livestream, according to CNN.