{"id":537039,"date":"2026-07-21T15:03:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T15:03:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/537039\/"},"modified":"2026-07-21T15:03:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T15:03:13","slug":"coroner-told-about-lynnmall-terrorists-time-in-prisons-extreme-risk-unit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/537039\/","title":{"rendered":"Coroner told about LynnMall terrorist’s time in prison’s extreme risk unit"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Coroners Court has heard about conditions inside the extreme risk unit where LynnMall attacker<\/a> Ahamed Samsudeen was housed.<\/p>\n

By Finn Blackwell of RNZ<\/a><\/p>\n

Samsudeen was shot dead by police, ending his stabbing spree at a West Auckland mall five years ago.<\/p>\n

A coroner’s inquest<\/a> is underway into his death, with parts two and three looking into the time leading up to the attack and Samsudeen’s path to violent extremism.<\/a><\/p>\n

Just seven weeks before the 2021 attack that resulted in six people stabbed and another injured, Ahamed Samsudeen was released from his second stint in prison.<\/p>\n

He was first behind bars in 2017, bailed a year later, and back in prison by August 2018.<\/p>\n

During this time, Samsudeen was moved from Mt Eden Prison to Auckland’s Paremoremo maximum security prison.<\/p>\n

While there, he spent time in the prison’s extreme risk unit, kept away from other prisoners.<\/p>\n

The coroner heard from the unit’s principal Corrections officer at the time, who cannot be named.<\/p>\n

He was asked by the lawyer representing Samsudeen’s family, Fletcher Pilditch KC, about what a day in the unit looked like.<\/p>\n

“His yard time, so therefore the time that he spent outside, that was outside of his cell but in his personal yard?” Pilditch asked.<\/p>\n

“Correct,” the officer said.<\/p>\n

“And at all other times he would be in his cell?” That was also correct.<\/p>\n

The officer told Pilditch that Samsudeen and others would be served breakfast at eight in the morning, eaten in their cells on their own.<\/p>\n

How much time they spent out of the cell would depend on what appointments the inmate had, as well as their yard time, he said.<\/p>\n

Counsel assisting the coroner, Rebekah Jordan, asked the officer how Samsudeen would spend time inside his cell.<\/p>\n

“He has a TV in his cell, he has reading material, he would use his cell-attached yard, pray, that sort of thing,” he said.<\/p>\n

Samsudeen was allowed two hours of yard time a day, one in the morning and another in the afternoon, the officer said.<\/p>\n

He also had library books and a Quran to read, as well as his own legal documents.<\/p>\n

She quoted evidence given earlier in the inquest from another prisoner in a cell near to Samsudeen, who’s identity was also suppressed.<\/p>\n

” ‘The daily comments and abuse from staff and inmates did not help, we would be locked in this environment for 22 to 24 hours a day, so there was no escape from it. Staff would condone or ignore this behaviour from other prisoners’,” she said.<\/p>\n

“It’s not uncommon for prisoners to abuse each other,” the officer said.<\/p>\n

The officer said this kind of abuse would be addressed.<\/p>\n

“If Mr Samsudeen for example was shouting abuse, you’d encourage him to cut it out, there’s not much more you can do.”<\/p>\n

He did not respond to comments about abuse from staff.<\/p>\n

Jordan asked the officer about the prison programmes that would have been available for Samsudeen.<\/p>\n

“He assessed in June 2020 as not being suitable to participate in group programmes due to his influence capability – I just wanted to explore with you, what does that mean?” she asked.<\/p>\n

“Attempting to spread his ideology, for example,” the officer said.<\/p>\n

The inquest was to continue on Wednesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Coroners Court has heard about conditions inside the extreme risk unit where LynnMall attacker Ahamed Samsudeen was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":537040,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[51,67,42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-537039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-auckland","tag-crime-and-justice","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=537039"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537039\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/537040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=537039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=537039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=537039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}