Australia police charge alleged Bondi Beach gunman with 59 offences, including terror
Naveed Akram, who emerged from a coma on Wednesday, also faces 15 counts of murder.
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SYDNEY: Police in Australia on Wednesday (Dec 17) charged alleged Bondi shooter Naveed Akram with 59 offences, including terrorism and 15 counts of murder, after Australia's worst mass shooting in decades.
"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," New South Wales state police said.
"Early indications point to a terrorist attack inspired by ISIS, a listed terrorist organisation in Australia," they said in a statement, using another name for the Islamic State group.
Authorities say Naveed and his father Sajid Akram opened fire on a Jewish festival at Sydney's famed Bondi Beach on Sunday evening, killing 15 people and wounding dozens more.
Among the victims were a 10-year-old girl, two Holocaust survivors and a married couple shot dead as they tried to thwart the attack.
Naveed, 24, was critically wounded by police during the shooting, and local media reported he woke from a coma on Tuesday night.
Sajid, 50, was killed in a shootout with police.
Police said Naveed had also been charged with 40 counts of causing grievous bodily harm to a person with intent to murder, as well as public display of the symbol of a prohibited terrorist organisation.
Two homemade Islamic State flags were found in a car registered to Naveed and parked near the beach.
The Sydney Morning Herald reported that Naveed declined to be interviewed by police over his alleged involvement in the Bondi attack. He remains in a Sydney hospital under heavy police guard.
The men accused of carrying out Sunday's attack had travelled to the southern Philippines, a region long plagued by Islamist militancy, weeks before the shooting that Australian police said appeared to be inspired by Islamic State.
United States President Donald Trump told a Hanukkah event at the White House late on Tuesday that he was thinking of the victims of the "horrific and antisemitic terrorist attack".
"We join in mourning all of those who were killed, and we're praying for the swift recovery of the wounded," he said.
ANTISEMITISM AND GUN LAWS
Australian 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 and failed to avert the mass shooting.
"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.
Akram's son, 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.
The leader of the Australian state of New South Wales said on Wednesday he will recall parliament next week to pass wide-ranging reforms of gun and protest laws.
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