- Attack described as inspired by “Daesh ideology”.
- Review to examine powers, structures and information sharing.
- ASIO investigated the son in 2019, no threat found.
SYDNEY: Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Sunday he has ordered a report to police and intelligence services after two gunmen shot and killed 15 people at a Jewish festival on Bondi Beach.
A father and his son are accused of spraying bullets into the family-filled Hanukkah celebration at Sydney’s most famous beach on December 14, allegedly inspired by “Daesh ideology”.
Mr Albanese said his government would examine whether the police and intelligence services had the powers, structures and sharing arrangements “to keep Australians safe”.
“The [Daesh]-inspired atrocity last Sunday reinforces the rapidly changing security environment in our nation,” he said.
“Our security agencies must be in the best position to respond.”
Alleged gunman Sajid Akram, 50, was shot dead by police during the Bondi attack. An Indian citizen, he entered Australia on a visa in 1998.
His 24-year-old son Naveed, an Australian-born citizen, remains in hospital under police guard and faces multiple charges, including terrorism and 15 murders.
‘shocking event’
The son was investigated by the Australian Security Intelligence Service in 2019 for possible radicalization but was found not to pose a threat at the time, according to Australian authorities.
His father was also questioned by the Secret Service as part of that review, but he managed to obtain a gun permit allowing him to own six firearms.
A few weeks before the Bondi Beach attack, the pair returned to Sydney from a four-week trip to the southern Philippines, which is now under investigation by detectives there and in Australia.
Albanese said there were “real problems” with Australia’s intelligence service in light of the attack.
“We need to examine exactly the way systems work. We need to look back at what happened in 2019 when this person was looked at, the assessment that was made,” he told the national broadcaster. ABC.
Asked in a separate interview about the alleged gunmen’s stay at a hotel on the southern Philippine island of Mindanao, Albanese said their radicalization was under investigation.
“But it’s also the case that they weren’t seen as persons of interest, and that’s why it’s such a shocking event,” he said.
‘Very, very unusual’
There is a long history of insurgency in the Mindanao region, but authorities there say there is no evidence that the Philippines is being used to train extremists.
That’s what the staff at Davao City’s GV Hotel told us AFP that the two men holed up in their small room for most of their 28-day stay.
They would usually only leave their rooms for two or three hours, with the longest excursion lasting eight hours, the Philippine National Security Service said.
Regional police, who have been trawling CCTV footage to trace the couple’s steps and discover who they met, said the father had visited a gun shop.
Clarke Jones, a criminologist from the Australian National University, said it was “very, very unusual” to have a father and son as suspected perpetrators.
Once in the Philippines, the couple could have easily traveled to Mindanao without raising any flags, he said AFP.
Jones, who has worked with violent offenders in the Philippines, said the radicalization of the alleged gunmen had apparently gone “under the radar” for years after the Australian intelligence investigation.
“I think we would really have to look at what happened and whether that child, when he was first discovered, should have been put through some kind of support program to prevent this potential thing from happening,” he said.
