The alleged gunman shot dead by police during Sunday’s attack on Australia’s Bondi beach was originally from the southern Indian city of Hyderabad and his family there seemed unaware of his alleged “radical mindset”, Indian police said on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, the second alleged gunman, who was hospitalised after also being shot by police, awoke from a coma and may be charged as early as Wednesday.
The New South Wales police commissioner, Mal Lanyon, said Naveed Akram, 24, woke on Tuesday afternoon.
“We have undertaken custody procedures with him while he’s in hospital. Our investigators had to wait for the effects of medication to wear off and for him to obtain a legal [adviser],” Lanyon told ABC radio on Wednesday morning.
“We expect to speak to him today.”
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, said he expected Naveed to be charged “over the coming hours”.
Fifteen people were killed in the attack on a Hanukah event, Australia’s worst mass shooting in nearly 30 years, and it is being investigated as an act of terrorism targeting the Jewish community.
The first funerals for those killed were being held on Wednesday, including funerals for Rabbi Eli Schlanger and Rabbi Yaakov Levitan. Schlanger worked at the Chabad of Bondi, which hosted Sunday’s Chanukah by the Sea event, and his funeral was to be held at the centre just 1km from the site of the attack.
Twenty-two people wounded in the attack remained in hospitals across Sydney, three in a critical condition, five in a critical but stable condition, and the remainder in a stable condition.
In a statement providing more details about one of the men alleged to have carried out the attack, police in the southern Indian state of Telangana said Sajid Akram, 50, attained a degree in commerce in Hyderabad, the large and bustling tech and pharma hub that is the state capital.
Akram then moved to Australia in November 1998 to find work and married a woman described as of European origin, with whom he had a son and a daughter.
He went back to India six times for family-related reasons, such as property matters and to visit his parents, but did not return when his father died, the police statement said.
It said Akram’s family seemed unaware of any alleged “radicalisation” and local police had no “adverse record” of him before he left in 1998.
“The family members have expressed no knowledge of his radical mindset or activities, nor of the circumstances that led to his radicalisation,” the statement said.
“The factors that led to the radicalisation of Sajid Akram … appear to have no connection with India or any local influence in Telangana.”
Australian police said Sajid Akram and his son, Naveed, had travelled to the Philippines last month.
The father travelled on an Indian passport, and the son on an Australian one, and the purpose of the trip was under investigation, officials said, adding that it was not conclusive whether they were linked to any terrorist group or whether they received training in that country.
Meanwhile, the devastated parents of the youngest victim of the terror attack told a memorial at Bondi beach on Tuesday evening that they named her Matilda because she was their firstborn in Australia.
“And I thought that Matilda was the most Australian name that could ever exist,” the 10-year-old’s father, Michael, told the crowd.
Michael and his wife Valentya, who requested their surnames be withheld, immigrated to Australia from Ukraine. They broke down as they addressed the crowd.
“I couldn’t imagine I would lose my daughter here,” Valentyna said.
Other victims of the attack include Holocaust survivor Alexander Kleytman, 87; dedicated and much-loved community volunteer Marika Pogany, 82, who died “on her favourite Bondi beach”; and three people who tried to stop the shooting: Boris Gurman, 69 and wife Sofia Gurman, 61, who were shot after trying to disarm one of the alleged gunmen; and Reuven Morrison, who threw bricks at Sajid Akram.
– with Reuters and Australian Associated Press
