On 2 July 2019, the leader of the Austrian far-right Identitarian Movement, Martin Sellner, announced on Twitter that he was taking the €750 he had donated to the Christchurch Victim Support back.

The tweet read:

“The Victims fund refused my donation and offered to send it back or to a "antiracist" organization. To prevent the money from going to sb that is linked to left wing terrorism, I will take it back and give it to a charity that has no such bias.”

The amount was one half of the donation the alleged Christchurch attacker had donated to Sellner. Sellner had stated that he would give one half to the Christchurch Victim Support. The charity had responded that it did not feel comfortable taking the money but, before passing it on to an anti-racism charity, they had to offer it back to Sellner as required by law.

“The return of the money to Sellner completes both his publicity stunt that earned him extensive air time on TV3 and Radio NZ, as well as a cunning circle of money laundering,” said WARF spokesperson Ana Cocker.

“On Tuesday, Sellner stated on Radio NZ that the money was tainting him and therefore he wanted to get rid of it. So he made it Victim Support’s problem. He would have known that Victim Support would never accept the money, so he is now taking it back.”

“Passing the money through the Victim Support bank account has cleansed it. Sellner can now spend it however he wants, without the taint of it coming from the alleged killer. The money has effectively been laundered by this transaction.”

“The NZ media fell for the trick and the whole operation shows how good the far right is at manipulating the media and the public.”

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