Bondi Beach shooting suspect conducted firearms training with his father, Australian police say

Australian police on Monday released documents revealing that Naveed Akram, the man accused of killing 15 people at Sydney’s Bondi Beach, had conducted firearms training with his father in rural New South Wales prior to the attack. The information came to light following Akram’s video court appearance from a Sydney hospital where he had been treated for an abdominal injury sustained during the incident.

According to the police documents, 24-year-old Naveed and his father Sajid Akram, 50, had recorded footage justifying what investigators describe as a meticulously planned attack. Sajid Akram was killed by police during the December 14 shooting, while his son was wounded and has now been transferred from hospital to prison.

The attack began when the pair threw four improvised explosive devices toward a crowd celebrating a Jewish event at Bondi Beach. These devices – described by police as three aluminum pipe bombs and a tennis ball bomb containing explosives, gunpowder and steel ball bearings – failed to detonate, though authorities confirmed they were “viable” IEDs.

Surveillance footage shows the gunmen’s careful preparations. Police documents indicate they had rented a room in Sydney’s Campsie suburb for three weeks before departing at 2:16 a.m. on the day of the attack. CCTV captured them carrying what police allege were two shotguns, a rifle, five IEDs, and two homemade Islamic State group flags wrapped in blankets.

Police released images showing the attackers firing from a footbridge that provided them with an elevated vantage point and partial protection behind waist-high concrete walls. The largest explosive device was later found in the trunk of Naveed Akram’s car, which had been draped with the flags.

Naveed Akram now faces 59 criminal charges, including 15 counts of murder, 40 counts of causing harm with intent to murder related to wounded survivors, and one count of committing a terrorist act. The antisemitic attack, which coincided with the beginning of the eight-day Hanukkah celebration, marks Australia’s worst mass shooting since 1996, when 35 people were killed in Tasmania.

In response to the attack, the New South Wales government introduced draft legislation on Monday that Premier Chris Minns described as the toughest gun control measures in Australia. The new restrictions would make Australian citizenship a requirement for obtaining a firearms license – a provision that would have excluded Sajid Akram, who was an Indian citizen with a permanent resident visa. Despite this status, he legally owned six rifles and shotguns. The new legislation would also limit recreational shooters to a maximum of four guns.

According to police, a video found on Naveed Akram’s phone shows father and son expressing “their political and religious views” and summarizing “their justification for the Bondi terrorist attack.” In the video, the men are seen “condemning the acts of Zionists” while adhering to “a religiously motivated ideology linked to Islamic State.” Additional footage from October shows them “firing shotguns and moving in a tactical manner” in a rural grassland area surrounded by trees.

As the investigation continues, the impromptu memorial that grew near the Bondi Pavilion was removed Monday as the beachfront area returned to more normal activity. Parts of the memorial will be preserved by the Sydney Jewish Museum. Meanwhile, funerals for victims continued, including a service for French national Dan Elkayam, a 27-year-old who had moved from Paris to Sydney a year ago. Health officials reported that 12 people wounded in the attack remain hospitalized.