New Zealand attack hero tells of dramatic moment he grabbed shooter’s gun and chased terrorist to save lives in mosque
A HEROIC dad has revealed how he chased the New Zealand Mosque terrorist with his own gun after he slaughtered 49 innocent worshippers. Abdul Aziz, 48, leapt into action at the Linwood mosque in Christchurch leading the gunman in a cat-and-mouse chase before scaring him into speeding away in his car. But Aziz, whose four […]
A HEROIC dad has revealed how he chased the New Zealand Mosque terrorist with his own gun after he slaughtered 49 innocent worshippers.
Abdul Aziz, 48, leapt into action at the Linwood mosque in Christchurch leading the gunman in a cat-and-mouse chase before scaring him into speeding away in his car.
But Aziz, whose four sons and dozens of others remained in the mosque while he faced off with the gunman, refuses to accept he was a hero.
The dad-of-four told News Hub: “He got another gun on his hand and turned it on me and started shooting it at me, and I just ducked between the cars and run.
“I wanted him to chase me in the car park as it would save more people in the masjid, but he didn’t see me probably.
“I went in the back and when I was running in the back I saw another dead body there and a gun was lying there, and I just grabbed the gun… I saw more shots coming through the mosque, and I started screaming say ‘I’m outside, come outside’.
MOSQUE MASSACRE
The gunman killed 49 people after attacking two mosques in the deadliest mass shooting in New Zealand’s modern history.
The warped sicko is believed to have killed 41 people at the Al Noor mosque before driving about three miles across town and attacking the Linwood mosque, where he killed seven more people. One person died later in a hospital.
White supremacist Brenton Tarrant, 28, has been charged with one count of murder in the slayings and a judge said Saturday that it was reasonable to assume more charges would follow.
SAVED LIVES
Latef Alabi, the Linwood mosque’s acting imam, said the death toll would have been far higher at the Linwood mosque if it wasn’t for Aziz.
Alabi said he heard a voice outside the mosque at about 1:55 p.m. and stopped the prayer he was leading and peeked out the window.
He saw a guy in black military-style gear and a helmet holding a large gun, and assumed it was a police officer. Then he saw two bodies and heard the gunman yelling obscenities.
“I realized this is something else. This is a killer,” he said.
He yelled at the congregation of more than 80 to get down. They hesitated. A shot rang out, a window shattered and a body fell, and people began to realize it was for real.
“Then this brother came over. He went after him, and he managed to overpower him, and that’s how we were saved,” Alabi said, referring to Aziz.
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“Otherwise, if he managed to come into the mosque, then we would all probably be gone.”
Originally from Kabul, Afghanistan, Aziz said he left as a refugee when he was a boy and lived for more than 25 years in Australia before moving to New Zealand a couple of years ago.
“I’ve been to a lot of countries and this is one of the beautiful ones,” he said.
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