Brenton Tarrant, who has been charged with murder over the Christchurch mosque shootings, is believed to have travelled to Pakistan in the past year.
The accused in court Photo: NZME
Tarrant, 28, appeared in court this morning after the shooting attacks at two Christchurch mosques left 49 people dead.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said Tarrant travelled to a range of countries and had "sporadically been in and out of New Zealand for periods of time".
She has asked intelligence agencies to piece together the nature of that travel, the sequence of events in terms of him obtaining gun licences in November 2017, and the purchasing of weapons a month later.
ABC's Claudia Jambour has been in Tarrant's home town of Grafton in New South Wales, Australia, and told RNZ she understood he had also travelled to Afghanistan and North Korea.
A hotel in Pakistan posted a Facebook photo of a man calling himself Brenton Tarrant in October last year.
The owner of the Osho Thang Hotel spoke to RNZ, saying Tarrant stayed at the hotel on 22 and 23 October 2018.
The hotel owner said he spoke to Tarrant only a few times and did not know why he had travelled to Pakistan.
He asked Tarrant to put up a Facebook post, which was a bit like signing the visitor book.
In the post, the accused said he was visiting Pakistan for the first time.
He called it an incredible place filled with the most earnest, kind hearted and hospitable people in the world.
Bulgarian authorities are investigating possible contacts between Tarrant and their country.
The Bulgarian state prosecutor said Tarrant visited several towns of historical significance, then travelled to Bucharest, the capital of Romania, before renting a car and driving to Hungary.
Bulgarian intelligence said he was reported to have visited Serbia, Bosnia, Montenegro, and Croatia in December 2016.
In Spring 2017, Tarrant is reported to have visited Europe, travelling to France, Spain and Portugal.
