The gunmen accused of carrying out the Bondi Beach attack used a “tennis ball bomb” among other explosives and practised shooting for weeks before the massacre, new court documents say.
Police allege the two gunmen were father-and-son duo Sajid and Naveed Akram. While Sajid Akram was shot dead by police, 24-year-old Naveed has been charged with 15 counts of murder over the attack targeting a seaside Hanukkah celebration on 13 December.
Naveed Akram conducted “firearms training” in a rural area of New South Wales and recorded it on video, alongside a video statement featuring his “justification” for the attack, court documents show.
The documents were made public after Naveed Akram’s video court appearance on Monday from a Sydney hospital.
According to the police filings, he and his father threw four improvised explosive devices – three pipe bombs and a “tennis ball bomb” – towards the crowd involved in a Jewish event at Australia’s most popular beach, but they all failed to explode.
When the explosives failed, the gunmen fired on members of the public with guns – police have said Sajid Akram was the licensed owner of multiple firearms. At least 14 people were killed at the scene, and one more person died from their injuries later in hospital.
Police believe the two “meticulously” planned the attack for several months and visited Bondi two days beforehand for reconnaissance, the documents say.
Australian authorities revoked a temporary suspension order on Monday, which was a police fact sheet protecting the identities of the survivors, and published the documents with redacted portions.
One video included in the court exhibits purports to show the father-son duo sitting in front of an image of an Isis flag. The video was taken on their mobile phones in October, police said.
They are heard making statements about their motivations for the attack, police said, adding that the two also condemned “the acts of Zionists”.
Naveed Akram was also “recorded appearing to recite, in Arabic, a passage from the Quran”.
On the day of the attack, at around 2am, the two men were seen leaving their rented accommodation – as captured on CCTV – in the Sydney suburb of Campsie “carrying long and bulky items wrapped in blankets”, which they stored in their car.
The two were carrying two single-barreled shotguns, a Beretta rifle, four improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and two Isis flags, according to the documents.
They were seen leaving their rental after 5pm, and other footage showed them arriving at Bondi at 6.50pm, where they parked and placed the flags on the windows, the police documents showed.
The charges against Naveed Akram include a terrorism offence, 15 counts of murder, and 40 counts relating to wound/grievous bodily harm to a person with intent to murder.
He has also been charged with the alleged firing of a weapon, displaying the symbol of a banned terrorist group, and placing an explosive device in or near a building.
According to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, prosecutors will argue that Naveed Akram’s actions were intended to advance a religious motive and were carried out in a way that caused deaths, inflicted severe injuries, and put the wider public at risk.
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