The man charged in relation to the Christchurch massacre appears in the Christchurch District Court on a charge of murder. More charges are expected to be added later. Photo / Mark Mitchell
The man charged in relation to the Christchurch massacre appears in the Christchurch District Court on a charge of murder. More charges are expected to be added later. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Files belonging to the accused gunman behind the Christchurch mosque shootings have been found on file-sharing sites, including Mega. Mega says it acted immediately after it was alerted on Friday.
The Australian reported the accused uploaded two files to the secure NZ cloud storage site before going on his shooting rampage - most likely copies of his 'manifesto'.
Mega, an Auckland-based company first set up by Kim Dotcom, has confirmed the uploads but told The Australian no one can view the files because the accused did not provide the encryption key.
Mega chairman Stephan Hall told The Australian Mega immediately shut down the accused gunman's account.
Hall told The Australian that Mega had zero tolerance for violent extremism.
"The users who uploaded such material were all using the free accounts. Mega has no desire to profit from the tragedy," he said.
"Links to any objectionable material relating to the Christchurch shooting are immediately disabled, the user's account is closed and details are provided to the authorities."
Hall said the accused gunman primarily took advantage of social media.
"The [accused] shooter posted seven links on his Twitter account prior to the massacre: two Mega links (without the encryption key, so no one can open the files), two links on mediafire.com, two links on solidfiles.com and one link on zippyshare.com. The links on the other sites were to the manifesto document. Presumably the Mega links were the same. Mega disabled the links within minutes of being advised of them on Friday."
An anti-Semitic Europe-based website was also found to be linking to an unrelated Mega account showing video of Friday's terrorist attack. Mega had this removed as soon as it was informed.
The anti-Semitic website was also using United States payment service PayPal to seek donations — in a link that was positioned below the accused gunman's manifesto.
The Australian said it contacted Mega and PayPal and both sites immediately took action in relation to the accounts.
Armed Police guard the Masjid Al Noor, Deans Ave after the shooting on Friday in which 50 people were killed. Photo / Michael Craig
The Australian said PayPal was investigating the matter.
"PayPal is committed to review accounts that have been flagged to us for possible breaches of our acceptable use policy, and will take action with account holders who are found to violate our policies," it said.
On Tuesday, the PayPal account on the anti-Semitic website was closed.
Dotcom stepped down as director of Mega in 2013.
The accused gunman faces one count of murder but is expected to face more charges when he reappears in court next month.
Fifty people died in the twin mosque attacks in Christchurch last Friday, New Zealand's worst ever terrorist atrocity.
