Sydney's Bondi beach shooter awakens from coma as first funeral held

New South Wales police were expected to start questioning 24 year-old Naveed Akram on Wednesday, Commissioner Mal Lanyon said

By Ainslie Chandler

 

The surviving gunman from the father-son duo that killed 15 people on Sydney’s Bondi Beach during a Hanukkah celebration has regained consciousness after being in a coma.

 

New South Wales police were expected to start questioning 24 year-old Naveed Akram on Wednesday, Commissioner Mal Lanyon told radio station 2GB that morning. The development comes as more details about the pair’s background and links to terrorism groups are revealed. 

 

Police presence was stepped up in Bondi on Wednesday morning as crowds gathered for the first funeral of the victims. Rabbi Eli Schlanger, a 41-year-old father of five, was farewelled at a packed service at a synagogue just a kilometer from where the attacks took place. 

 

“It is unthinkable that we talk about you in the past tense,” Schlanger’s father-in-law, Rabbi Yehoram Ulman, said at the service. “Eli was the best husband, the best father, the best son.”

 

An online appeal for Schlanger’s family had raised more than A$570,000 ($378,000) as at midday Wednesday.

 

Late on Tuesday, Indian police confirmed that deceased gunman Sajid Akram, 50, was an Indian national who had limited contact with his family back home since migrating to Australia 27 years ago. He was originally from the city of Hyderabad, where he’d completed a commerce degree before migrating to Australia in 1998, Telangana state police said in a statement. 

 

Police confirmed that homemade Islamic State flags were found in a vehicle registered to one of the gunmen blamed for the massacre. The two had also travelled to an area of the Philippines last month where Islamic State-aligned groups have operated, officials in Manila said.

 

Naveed was investigated by Australia’s domestic intelligence agency in 2019. He had connections and associations with members of a Sydney-based Islamic State terrorism cell and was a follower of Sydney radical cleric Wisam Haddad, the ABC reported.

 

Information about the father’s gun license had changed, Lanyon said Tuesday. He received the license in 2023, not 2015 as police had first advised. That’s well after the son had been investigated by authorities.

 

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Wednesday the reasons behind the pair’s visit to the Philippines remained under investigation. 

 

“This was ISIS-inspired extremist ideology leading to a terrorist attack” with tragic consequences for the Jewish community, Albanese said on ABC Radio Wednesday morning.

 

There were still 22 people being treated in New South Wales hospitals as of 8 p.m. Tuesday, the health department said in a statement.

 

Donations on a gofundme page for Ahmed Al Ahmed, the 43 year-old father who tackled and disarmed one of the shooters, had passed $2.4 million at midday Wednesday local time.

 

A sprawling memorial of flowers and candles has formed on the patch of grass near the attack site. The crime scene is likely to be reopened to the public on Wednesday afternoon, police said Tuesday.