Hawzah News Agency - (Suva - Fiji) - A Muslim leader in Fiji says his community welcomes the life sentence handed down to the man who carried out the Christchurch mosque attacks.

Three Fijians were among the 51 worshippers killed in March last year.

The President of the Ul-Halil Mosque in Lautoka, Abu-Bakr Sadiq Koya, said the wait for the court's decision was a long one.

"Justice has been done by the court of New Zealand. According to what he did - that he killed innocent people, the law has done the right thing."

Koya said there was a sense of relief that the families could now move on with their lives.

The 29 year old Brenton Tarrant earlier admitted to 51 charges of murder, 40 of attempted murder and one charge of terrorism.

His sentence marked the first time a convicted person had been imprisoned with no possibility of parole.

Justice Cameron Mander imposed the harshest sentence available to the court.

Before handing down the sentence, Justice Mander read through the names of the murder victims, relaying details of their lives and the shattered families they left behind to the terrorist.

The names of Fijians - Imam Hafiz Musa Patel, Ashraf Ali Razak and Ashraf Ali - were heard.

Koya said they were all visiting family in Christchurch when the tragedy struck.

The grandson of Razak, Mohammed Iftikar Ali had said it was fate because his grandfather wasn't supposed to be in Christchurch that day, but he made a stopover on his way to Australia to visit a sick relative.