Former NZ First MP Richard Prosser has died suddenly in the UK.
NZ First leader Winston Peters said in a statement they were saddened to learn of the sudden passing of Prosser, 55.
"Our thoughts and prayers are with his friends and family at this sad and challenging time," Peters said.
Conspiracy-theory spreading website Counterspin said, "we can confirm that Richard Prosser has left us after a long battle with depression".
"He has two little girls," ex-NZ First MP Tracey Martin told the NZ Herald. "No matter what Richard did or was, I hope people think of them."
Prosser was in Parliament from 2011 to 2017 and represented NZ First as a list MP in Waimakariri.
In 2013, Prosser came under fire after it emerged he'd written an anti-Muslim column for Investigative magazine.
He called Muslims a "sorry pack of misogynist troglodytes from Wogistan, threatening our way of life and security of travel in the name of their Stone Age religion".
Prosser also said all young men who look Muslim should be banned from flying.
He later "unreservedly" apologised for his comments.
In 2020, Prosser claimed on his blog that COVID-19 was a conspiracy orchestrated "at the behest of a global financial cartel who own the world's commercial banking sector, and who own and control the world's media, and who own and control the corporations that monopolise agriculture, military materiel production, and utilities, including oil, electricity, telecommunications, and even water".
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