JERUSALEM (Reuters) - The Australian New Zealand belligerent attacker, Brenton Tarant, visited Israel briefly in late 2016, without revealing the reasons for the visit, Israeli officials said.
An official with Israel's Population and Immigration Agency told Reuters that Brenton Tarant entered Israel in October 2016 on a three-month tourist visa and stayed for nine days.
The official said there were no further details available on what Tarant, 28, did during the visit. The Australian Embassy and the Consulate of New Zealand in Israel have not yet responded to requests for comment.
A tour before the massacre
A few months before the massacre of the two mosques in New Zealand, its executor, Brenton Tarant, was on a historic tour of Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary, as he toured a vast geography that was an arena for historical events and battles.
According to the reports, Tarrant began his tours of that region of the world in 2016, and included - in addition to the three countries mentioned - Turkey, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Croatia and Montenegro.
In Turkey, the state television network TRT quoted a senior official as saying that Tarant had visited Turkey at least twice and that the authorities were investigating his movements and contacts inside the country.
The network posted a photograph of the killer at a Turkish airport, quoting the official as saying that he spent 43 days in Turkey, where he stayed between 17 and 20 March 2016, and another between 13 September and 25 October. Same year.
The Turkish official said authorities suspect Tarant may have traveled to other countries in Europe, Asia and Africa.