A wheelchair-using worshipper who survived the slaughter at Christchurch's Al Noor mosque, but whose wife was killed, has offered an olive branch to the gunman, saying he would like to meet him and telling him"I still love you." Fifty people died at two mosques in the South Island city on Friday when a gunman burst in, spraying bullets at his victims while they prayed in a city now consumed by grief and sadness.
"I want to give the message to the person who did this, or if he has any friends who also think like this: I still love you," Farhid Ahmed, 59, told Reuters in an interview at his house, as mourners arrived to offer condolences for his wife, Husna.
"I don't agree with what you did … you took a wrong decision, a wrong direction, but I want to believe in you. That you have great potential in your heart," he said.