Bondi Beach terror attack gunman Naveed Akram was investigated over links to Islamic State six years before carrying out the massacre with his father that has left 16 people dead so far.
ASIO examined the 24-year-old Muslim terrorist after police stopped a terror plot by a Sydney-based IS cell in 2019 led by Isaac El Matari, who was jailed for seven years in 2021 for planning an insurgency in Australia.
Joint Counter Terrorism Team (JCTT) official told ABC News an IS flag was found in the car belonging to Naveed and his father Sajid Akram, 50, a licenced firearm owner who was killed during the attack on Sunday evening. Naveed is in a critical condition in hospital under police guard.
The official said ASIO examined Naveed’s links to the IS cell after Matari’s arrest, and sources said the two men were close.
ASIO boss Mike Burgess confirmed on Sunday evening that one of the gunmen was known to the spy agency, but did not specify which one, and said he was not seen as an “immediate threat”.
NSW Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon confirmed on Monday that Sajid owned six legal firearms, and that police were in the process of determining whether the weapons were used in the Bondi attack.
Police raided the Akram family home in the immigrant-dominated western Sydney suburb of Bonnyrigg on Sunday evening, where Naveed’s mother Verena Akram told The Sydney Morning Herald her unemployed bricklayer son was a “good boy”, and had told her he was going on a fishing trip.
“He rings me up [on Sunday] and said, Mum, I just went for a swim. I went scuba diving. We’re going … to eat now, and then this morning, and we’re going to stay home now because it’s very hot,” she said.
“He doesn’t have a firearm. He doesn’t even go out. He doesn’t mix around with friends. He doesn’t drink, he doesn’t smoke, he doesn’t go to bad places … he goes to work, he comes home, he goes to exercise, and that’s it.
“Anyone would wish to have a son like my son … he’s a good boy.”
Header image: Left, right, Naveed Akram.
