Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell intends to refuse to answer questions at a Monday deposition before the House’s Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, according to a Sunday letter from US Representative Ro Khanna.

Maxwell, who was found guilty in 2021 for her role in helping Epstein sexually abuse teenage girls and is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence, plans to invoke her Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination and decline to answer all substantive questions, according to Khanna’s letter to Representative James Comer, the committee chair.

Maxwell’s attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Sunday.

Instead of answering individual questions, Maxwell plans to read a prepared statement at the beginning of her deposition, Khanna, who serves on the committee, said without detailing the source of his information.

“This position appears inconsistent with Maxwell’s prior conduct, as she did not invoke the Fifth Amendment when she previously met with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche to discuss substantially similar subject matter,” Khana, a California Democrat, wrote in his letter seeking clarification on her testimony.

Maxwell’s deposition comes as the US Department of Justice has released of millions of internal documents related to Epstein.

• Did not have “mental health” required to make decisions: Tarrant.
• Tarrant opened fire on two mosques during Friday prayers.
• Convict serving life sentence in prison without parole.

A white supremacist who killed 51 Muslim worshippers at two mosques in New Zealand seven years ago said on Monday that he was irrational when he pleaded guilty, local media reported, as he sought to overturn his conviction in a New Zealand court.

Brenton Tarrant, 35, who appeared in a court in Wellington via a video link, is seeking to appeal his guilty pleas.

Tarrant, an Australian national, opened fire on two mosques in Christchurch in March 2019 during Friday prayers in the deadliest mass shooting in New Zealand’s history.

He released a racist manifesto shortly before the attack, where he used military-style semi-automatic weapons and livestreamed the killings on Facebook with a head-mounted camera.

Tarrant initially denied all charges and was preparing to stand trial after the attack but entered guilty pleas a year later to 51 charges of murder, 40 counts of attempted murder and one charge of committing a terrorist act.

Tarrant told the court that harsh prison conditions had deteriorated his mental health while awaiting trial, and that he was essentially not fit to plead guilty, according to a report in the New Zealand Herald.

“I did not have the mind frame or mental health required to be making informed decisions at that time,” Tarrant said.

“I think the issue is, did I really know what I wanted to do or what would be a good idea? No, I didn’t actually … I was making choices, but they were not choices made voluntarily and they were not choices made rationally due to the (prison) conditions.”

Counsel acting for Tarrant have their names and identities suppressed by order of the Court and could not be reached for comment.

A court document showed the Court of Appeal would check if Tarrant was incapable of making rational decisions when he entered his guilty pleas “as a result of the conditions of his imprisonment, which he says were torturous and inhumane”.

He is serving a life sentence in prison without parole — the first time a New Zealand court imposed a sentence requiring a person to spend the rest of their life in prison.

The appeal hearing is set down for five days, and is expected to finish on Friday.

If the appeal court declines to grant the application to vacate the guilty pleas, a hearing later in the year will consider the appeal on his sentence. If the appeal is accepted, the case will be sent back to the High Court for Tarrant to stand trial on the charges.

• Laureate ended week-long hunger strike on Sunday protesting detention.
• She was arrested in Dec for decrying lawyer Khosrow Alikordi’s death.
• Her sentence includes prison time, internal exile, two-year travel ban.

Iranian activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi, who has been imprisoned repeatedly in her three-decade campaign for women’s rights, was sentenced to a new prison term of 7-1/2 years, a group supporting her said on Sunday.

Mohammadi, 53, was on a week-long hunger strike that ended on Sunday, the Narges Foundation said in a statement. It said Mohammadi told her lawyer, Mostafa Nili, in a phone call on Sunday from prison that she had received her sentence on Saturday.

The Iranian foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Tehran renewed a crackdown on dissent during nearly three weeks of anti-government protests that started in late December.

Mohammadi was arrested on December 12 after denouncing the suspicious death of lawyer Khosrow Alikordi. Prosecutor Hasan Hematifar told reporters that she made provocative remarks at Alikordi’s memorial ceremony in the northeastern city of Mashhad and encouraged those present “to chant norm‑breaking slogans” and “disturb the peace”.

Mohammadi is being held in a detention centre in Mashhad.

“After weeks of absolute isolation and a total cutoff of communication, she was finally able to describe her situation in a brief phone call with her lawyer,” the foundation said.

Her sentence includes six years imprisonment for assembly

and collusion against national security and 1-1/2 years for propaganda against the government. She was also punished with two years of internal exile in the city of Khusf and a two-year travel ban.

Mohammadi won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2023 while in prison for her campaign to advance women’s rights and abolish the death penalty in Iran.