Chilling details of the Dec. 14 shooting at Sydney’s Bondi Beach have emerged, with police claiming in court documents released on Monday that the gunmen “carefully planned this terrorist attack for many months”, filmed an “ISIS-inspired” video, carried out firearms training and hurled a tennis ball bomb containing explosives into the crowd, which failed to detonate but was said to be a “viable” explosive by Guards police.
The tragedy killed 15 people and injured others when gunmen opened fire during a Jewish holiday event where hundreds had gathered to celebrate the start of the Hanukkah holiday.
Officers at the scene injured Naveed Akram, 24, and killed his father, 50-year-old Sajid Akram. Police identified three aluminum pipe bombs containing gunpowder and steel ball bearings. Although none exploded, authorities described them as “viable” IEDs.
The pair rented a room in the Sydney suburb of Campsie for three weeks before the attack and left at 2:16 a.m. on the day of the shooting, the AP reported. CCTV footage allegedly shows them carrying two shotguns, a rifle, five IEDs and two homemade Islamic State flags wrapped in blankets.
Authorities also released images showing the gunmen firing from a footbridge that gave them an elevated position and partial cover behind waist-high concrete walls. The largest IED was discovered after the firefight near the footbridge, in the son’s son’s suitcase, which was left covered in flags.
Sajid Akram also legally owned six rifles and shotguns, exceeding the proposed new legal limit for recreational shooters of four firearms.
What does the video found on Naveed Akram’s phone show?
Police said a video found on Naveed Akram’s phone showed his father expressing “his political and religious views and appeared to summarize their justification for the terrorist attack on Bondi”. In the video, the men are seen “condemning the actions of the Zionists” while demonstrating that they “adhere to a religiously motivated ideology associated with the Islamic State,” police said, according to the AP.
Footage from October reportedly shows them “firing shotguns and moving in a tactical manner” on a grassy area surrounded by trees. Police say: “There is evidence that the accused and his father had carefully planned this terrorist attack for many months.”
Meanwhile, authorities have charged Akram with 59 crimes, including 15 murders, 40 counts of assault with intent to murder the survivors and one count of committing an act of terrorism. The anti-Semitic attack, which came at the start of an eight-day Hanukkah celebration, is the deadliest mass shooting in Australia since 1996, when a lone gunman killed 35 people in Tasmania.
