A Hanukkah menorah drawing is among items, including cards, photos and artworks that are collected to be included in memorials and the Jewish Museum as staff clean up the tribute site at the Bondi Pavilion following a shooting at Bondi Beach in Sydney. Police released new details and images Monday in the case. Photo by Dean Lewins/EPA
Dec. 22 (UPI) — The two men believed to carry out the attack at a Hanukkah celebration on Bondi Beach that killed 15 people had two pipe bombs and a tennis-ball bomb that failed to detonate before the shootings and practiced shooting in advance of the attack, Australian police said.
Naveed Akram, 24, faces 15 counts of murder and injuring dozens more. His father, Sajid Akram, 50, was shot and killed by police at the scene.
Police released a fact sheet Monday saying they’d found that the pair had made two pipe bombs and a tennis ball bomb, which they threw toward the crowd. But the devices failed to detonate. Then the pair began shooting. Police said the bombs were “viable improvised explosive devices.”
Before the attack, the pair hung Islamic State flags in the front and back windows of the car they drove to the beach.
The Akrams also allegedly “meticulously planned this terrorist attack for many months.” They allegedly created an “ISIS inspired” video, conducted firearms training and made the explosives, police said. A video shows them “firing shotguns and moving in a tactical manner,” police said.
On Monday, the Australian Federal Prosecution Service said Naveed Akram is charged with one count of committing a terrorist act, 15 counts of murder, 40 counts of attempted murder, one count of discharge of firearm with intent, one count of displaying a prohibited terrorist organization symbol and one count of causing explosives to be placed in or near a building, conveyance or public place. He is being held with no bail.
The Statement of Facts was under a suppression order by the court until Monday, when it was lifted.
Akram’s next court date is Feb. 16.
Naveed Akram’s mother told police she believed the pair were on a vacation in southern New South Wales. But police allege, “The mother recalled that while he was away, the accused would call her each morning from a payphone … and would discuss what he planned to do that day.”
A video made in October showed the two men in front of an ISIS flag making statements about their motives for the attack and condemning “the acts of ‘Zionists,'” police said. Naveed Akram is also shown “appearing to recite, in Arabic, a passage from the Koran.”
At about 2 p.m. AEDT on Dec. 14 — the day of the attack — the men were seen on a security camera leaving from a short-term rental home in the suburb of Campsie “carrying long and bulky items wrapped in blankets,” which they put into a car. Police said the items include two single-barrel shotguns, a Beretta rifle, four IEDs and two ISIS flags.
They left the rental at 5 p.m. and arrived at Bondi at 6:50 p.m. Surveillance video shows them removing the items from the car and walking toward a footbridge.
Footage from Dec. 12 shows the two men in their car near Bondi Beach. “The accused and his father, S Akram, are seen to exit the vehicle and walk along the footbridge, being the same position where they attended two days later and shot at members of the public,” police said. “Police allege that this is evidence of reconnaissance and planning of a terrorist act.”