Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
Melbourne, Australia — A man accused of murdering 15 people at Bondi Beach in Sydney received firearms training in the state of New South Wales, near Sydney, with his father, according to Australian police documents released Monday.
The documents, released following Naveed Akram’s video appearance from a Sydney hospital where he was treated for an abdominal injury, indicate the two men recorded footage justifying the meticulously planned attack.
Police injured Akram at the scene of the Dec. 14 shooting and killed his father, Sajid Akram, 50.
The state government confirmed that Naveed Akram was shifted from a hospital to a prison on Monday. Authorities have not identified either facility.
The 24-year-old and his father began their attack by throwing four improvised explosive devices at a crowd celebrating a party. annual Jewish event at Bondi Beachbut the devices did not explode, according to the documents.
Police described the devices as three aluminum pipe bombs and a tennis ball containing an explosive, gunpowder and steel ball bearings. None exploded, but police described them as “viable” IEDs.
The pair had rented a room in the Sydney suburb of Campsie for three weeks before leaving at 2.16am on the day of the attack. CCTV filmed them carrying what police say were two shotguns, a rifle, five IEDs and two homemade IS flags wrapped in blankets.
Police also released images of the gunmen firing from a walkway, giving them an elevated vantage point and the protection of waist-high concrete walls.
The largest IED was discovered after the shooting near the footbridge, in the trunk of the son’s car, which had been left draped in flags.
Authorities were investigating a month-long trip by the father and son. in the Philippineswhere an Islamist insurgency has been taking place for decades in the south of the country.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said last week that the attack was inspired by ISISand there is an ISIS-affiliated militant group operating in a remote region of the Philippines.
But a Davao City hotel receptionist told CBS News that the attackers never left their room for more than a day.
Authorities charged Akram with 59 crimes, including 15 counts of murder, 40 counts of causing harm with intent to kill in relation to the injured survivors and one count of committing a terrorist act.
The anti-Semitic attack at the start of the eight-day Hanukkah celebration was Australia’s worst mass shooting since a lone gunman killed 35 people in the state of Tasmania in 1996.
The New South Wales government introduced bills to Parliament on Monday that Premier Chris Minns said would become the toughest in Australia.
THE new restrictions this would involve making Australian citizenship a condition of being able to obtain a firearms license. This would have excluded Sajid Akram, who was an Indian citizen on a permanent resident visa.
Sajid Akram also legally owned six rifles and shotguns. A new legal limit for recreational shooters would be a maximum of four weapons.
Police said a video found on Naveed Akram’s phone shows him and his father expressing “their political and religious views and appearing to summarize their justification for the Bondi terror attack”.
The men are seen in the video “condemning the actions of Zionists” while also “adhering to a religious ideology linked to (ISIS)”, police said.
Video taken in October shows them “firing shotguns and moving tactically” on meadows surrounded by trees, police said.
“There is evidence that the accused and his father meticulously planned this terrorist attack for several months,” police say.
A makeshift memorial that grew up near Bondi Pavilion after the massacre, as thousands of mourners brought flowers and heartfelt cards, was removed on Monday as the waterfront returned to more normal activity. The Sydney Jewish Museum will retain part of the memorial.
Funeral of the victims The ceremony continued on Monday with the military service of French national Dan Elkayam in the nearby suburb of Woollahra, the heart of Sydney’s Jewish life. The 27-year-old left Paris for Sydney a year ago.
The Health Ministry said 12 people injured in the attack remained hospitalized Monday.
