Bondi Beach Shooter’s Mother: “Everyone Would Want My Son

The young attacker had ties to the jihadist movement since he was seventeen. He acquired them then as a follower of the radical preacher Wissam Haddad, who was known to recruit young people to terrorism through his prayer space at Australia’s Al Madina Dawah Center in Bankstown.

The Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO) was aware of Naveed’s activities but rated them as “non-threatening”. In 2019, she was seen on videos handing out leaflets for the Street Dawah movement associated with Haddad and other extremists.

In one video, Akram urges: “Allah will reward you for whatever deeds you do for him. Inshallah, this will save you on the day of judgment when everyone will ask where is hope, this will come to you on the day of judgment,” the Bondi shooter was quoted as saying by the server The Australian.

A few hours before the fatal shooting into a crowd celebrating the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah on Australia’s Bondi Beach, one of the shooters was talking to his mother. “I went diving and now I’m going to have something to eat,” The Sydney Morning Herald quoted their conversation as saying.

After police surrounded Verena Akram’s home in Bonnyrigg in Sydney’s west, the woman said her son Naveed last called her on Sunday morning. At the time, she said, he was on a weekend trip to Jervis Bay with his father, Sajid Akram.

“He called me on Sunday and said, ‘Mom, I just went swimming, I went diving. Now we’re going to have something to eat and then we’re going to stay home because it’s so hot here,'” Akram said. Hours later, Naveed and his father opened fire into the celebrating crowd.

The mother said she was unable to recognize her son even from photographs taken at the scene and insisted it was unthinkable that he was involved in the violent attack. “He doesn’t have a gun. He doesn’t even go out. He doesn’t hang out 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 work out and that’s the end of it,” she said.

She added that Naveed had been unemployed for the past two months after losing his job as a bricklayer due to the collapse of his employer. According to her, he was actively looking for a new place. “Everyone wishes they had a son like mine. He’s a good boy,” she said.

However, most of Naveed’s time without a job was not spent looking for work in Australia, according to foreign media reports. Together with his father, he stayed in the Philippines for almost a month, at the GV Hotel in the city of Davao in the south of the country.

According to published photos, the room in which the couple lived was modestly furnished. The men paid roughly 500 crowns per night. Hotel staff spoke of a “quiet routine” – guests went out for a maximum of two hours a day and avoided contact with others. They extended their stay twice.

Immigration authorities confirmed that Naveed and Sajid Akram traveled to Davao in the Philippines on November 1 and returned to Australia on November 28, sixteen days before the Bondi Beach attack. It is on the island of Mindanao, whose largest city is Davao, that Islamist militant groups operate, including an offshoot of the Islamic State in East Asia (ISEA).

However, Philippine National Security Adviser Eduardo Año said the visit to the country alone did not constitute evidence of terrorist training. “The length of their stay would not allow for any meaningful or structured training,” he said, adding that ISEA’s presence had been significantly weakened following the 2017 siege of Marawi City.

On Tuesday, it was revealed that the second shooter was Naveed’s father, Sajid Akram, originally from Hyderabad, India. He immigrated to Australia in 1998.

He had only limited contact with his family of origin in India. He visited the country six times in 27 years. According to the media, his marriage to a European Christian woman, with whom he had two children born in Australia – a son Naveed and a daughter, was the reason for family disputes.

The father traveled to the Philippines with an Indian passport, his son with an Australian one. The hotel did not keep copies of their documents or receipts, the camera system automatically overwrites itself after seven days, according to the staff. However, soldiers later arrived at the scene and seized the hard drive of the hotel’s computer, The Sydney Morning Herald reported. Naveed Akram used a phone number registered in the Philippines to book his stay.

The hotel staff noticed that the father almost always wore sunglasses. According to them, the two men did not appear suspicious, kept to the side and avoided talking to staff and other guests.

Philippine National Police Chief Jose Melencio Nartatez Jr. said that investigators were back-checking the places the men visited during their stay, as well as the people they came in contact with, to get a clearer picture of their activities.

While Philippine authorities deny evidence of formal training, investigators in Australia continue to piece together information about what led up to the Bondi Beach attack.

“There appears to be evidence of inspiration by the terrorist organization (IS),” commented Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at a press conference on Tuesday, despite the already known facts.

Naveed’s father obtained a firearms license for lethal weapons in 2023 and it was for recreational hunting.

Police found four long rifles at the scene of the attack, other weapons, including two improvised bombs, then secured them in the family’s car and home. The pair were said to have shouted “Allahu Akbar” as they fired from the bridge. New South Wales Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon also said IS flags were also found in a car registered to Naveed Akram.