A man who allegedly opened fire on a Jewish Hanukkah celebration at Sydney‘s famed Bondi Beach has been charged with 59 offences, including murder and terrorism, police said Wednesday.
The alleged father-and-son perpetrators opened fire at the outdoor event on Sunday, killing 15 in an attack that shook the nation and intensified fears of rising antisemitism and violent extremism.
Sajid Akram, 50, was shot dead by police at the scene, while his 24-year-old son Naveed Akram emerged from a coma on Tuesday afternoon after also being shot by police.
New South Wales Police said on Wednesday that the younger man had been charged with 59 offences, including 15 counts of murder, 40 counts of wounding with attempt to murder, as well as a terror offence and other charges.
Akram’s lawyer did not enter pleas and did not request his client’s release on bail during a video court appearance from his hospital bed, a court statement said.
As memorials continue for the 15 people killed in the mass shooting at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, stories of courage are being shared about several victims who fought back against their attackers. Meanwhile, questions are being raised about a trip to the Philippines taken by the suspected shooters.
“Police will allege in court the man engaged in conduct that caused death, serious injury and endangered life to advance a religious cause and cause fear in the community,” it said in a statement.
“Early indications point to a terrorist attack inspired by ISIS, a listed terrorist organization in Australia.”
Akram will next appear via video link before a local court on Monday morning.
PM pledges to work with Jewish community
The father and son had travelled to the southern Philippines weeks before the shooting that Australian police said appeared to be inspired by the Islamic State. Immigration records show the pair landed in Manila and traveled to Davao City in Mindanao, a region long-plagued by Islamist militancy.
However, in a statement, the national security adviser for the Philippines said there is no evidence that the two suspects received any form of training while in the country.
Eduardo Año also said that after a five-month battle in which the Islamic State-inspired Maute group seized Marawi and fought government forces in 2017, Philippine troops have significantly degraded the capabilities of ISIS-affiliated groups.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is facing criticism that his centre-left government did not do enough to prevent the spread of antisemitism in Australia during the two-year Israel-Gaza war.
“We will work with the Jewish community, we want to stamp out and eradicate antisemitism from our society,” Albanese told reporters.
The government and intelligence services are also under pressure to explain why Sajid Akram was allowed to legally acquire the high-powered rifles and shotguns used in the attack. The government has already promised sweeping reforms to gun laws.
Naveed Akram, meanwhile, was briefly investigated by Australia’s domestic intelligence agency in 2019 over alleged links to Islamic State, but there was no evidence at the time he posed a threat, Albanese said.
Rabbis remembered
Funerals were held Wednesday for two rabbis who had worked together at the Chabad of Bondi, both with young families and wives who had been best friends since high school. The “Chanukah by the Sea” event at the beach was organized by the Chabad of Bondi.
A Bondi synagogue was overflowing for the funeral of Rabbi Eli Schlanger, 41, on Wednesday morning. A funeral for the second rabbi, Yaakov Levitan, 39, was held at Macquarie Park, in Sydney’s northwest, later in the day.
“Yaakov and Eli had an incredible partnership. Eli had the visions and ideas, and Yaakov figured out how to get it done,” said Rabbi Yakov Lieder, in an online obituary published on a Chabad website.
Schlanger recently celebrated the birth of his fifth child, while Levitan was a father of four.
“You were my son, my friend, my confidant … to go a day without you seems impossible,” Rabbi Yehoram Ulman, Schlanger’s father-in-law, told the service. Rabbi Ulman said Jewish people must not stop celebrating and displaying their faith.
“That is not the answer … we can never ever allow them to not only succeed, but any time they try something, we become greater and stronger.”
Ulman said local rabbis would organize an event for the end of Hanukkah to light eight candles this Sunday at the scene of the tragedy.
Funeral for youngest victim on Thursday
The funeral of Matilda, a 10-year-old girl who died in the shooting, will be held on Thursday, according to an online funeral notice.
Matilda’s father told a Bondi vigil on Tuesday night he did not want his daughter’s legacy to be forgotten.
“We came here from Ukraine … and I thought that Matilda is the most Australian name that can ever exist. So just remember the name, remember her,” local media reported him as saying.
‘She’ll be so badly missed, she was just a ray of sunshine in her family,’ Daniel Collins, the uncle of 10-year-old Matilda, said. Matilda was one of 15 people killed after two shooters fired into a Hanukkah celebration at Australia’s most popular beach on Sunday.
New South Wales Premier Chris Minns said 23 people were still in several Sydney hospitals.
The family of 22-year-old police officer Jack Hibbert, who was shot twice on Sunday and had been on the force for just four months, said in a statement on Wednesday he had lost vision in one eye and faced a “long and challenging recovery” ahead.
Other shooting victims included a Holocaust survivor, and a husband and wife who first approached the gunmen before they started firing.
Albanese said Ahmed al-Ahmed, 43, the man who tackled one of the shooters to disarm his rifle and suffered gunshot wounds, was due to undergo surgery on Wednesday.
In Bondi on Wednesday, swimmers gathered on Sydney’s most popular beach and held a minute’s silence. A New Year’s Eve party due to be held on the beach was cancelled by organizers.
“This week has obviously been very profound, and this morning, I definitely feel a sense of the community getting together, and a sense of everyone sitting together,” Archie Kalaf, 24, told Reuters. “Everyone’s grieving, everyone’s understanding and processing it in their own way.”
