A mourner pays tribute at a memorial at the Bondi Pavilion at Bondi Beach on Dec. 22 in Sydney.Izhar Khan/Getty Images
The two men accused of carrying out Australia’s deadliest ever terrorist incident visited the site of the attack just two days prior, in the culmination of months of preparation and rehearsals, a police investigation found.
Fifteen people were killed and dozens were wounded in a mass shooting during a Hanukkah celebration at Sydney’s Bondi Beach on Dec. 14.
Thousands in Sydney mark day of reflection for Bondi Beach shooting victims
Australian PM says Jewish community ‘completely unbreakable’ after Bondi attack
One of the alleged gunmen, 50-year-old Sajid Akram, was shot dead by police during the incident, while his son Naveed Akram, 24, was hospitalized but is now recovering. He faces dozens of criminal charges, including terrorism, 15 counts of murder and 40 counts of attempted murder.
The death toll could have been far higher had several improvised explosive devices prepared by the attackers not failed to go off, police alleged in a statement about Mr. Akram’s case.
The 22-page document, released by a New South Wales court on Monday, contains CCTV imagery of two men scoping out a footbridge near Bondi Beach on the evening of Dec. 12.
Two days later, more CCTV footage captured the men carrying “long and bulky items wrapped in blankets” – believed to be two shotguns and a high-powered rifle used in the attack – to a silver car parked outside an Airbnb rented by the younger Mr. Akram in the Sydney suburb of Campsie. They also appeared to load the vehicle with homemade explosives and two Islamic State flags before returning to the premises.
Two men carry items wrapped in blankets in Campsie, New South Wales, in this still from CCTV footage taken from a court document.NSW POLICE/Reuters
As per the footage, the two men parked their car near Bondi Beach around 7 p.m. and unfurled the IS flags in the vehicle’s front and rear windows. They were then seen moving quickly to the footbridge, from where they threw three pipe bombs and a tennis ball bomb into the Hanukkah crowd before opening fire.
All devices failed to detonate, although a police assessment found the bombs, along with a much larger device left in the vehicle, to be “viable.”
Also in the car were two phones belonging to the Akrams, on which a video from late October showed the men “conducting firearms training in a countryside location, suspected to be in NSW,” according to a police statement.
“The Accused and his father are seen throughout the video firing shotguns and moving in a tactical manner,” the police statement said.
A still from a video on a phone belonging to the Akrams that police say shows Naveed Akram with a firearm.NSW POLICE/Reuters
A separate video, also from October, showed two men, wearing black and seated in front of several guns and an IS flag, reciting a passage from the Quran and making “a number of statements regarding their motivation for the ‘Bondi attack’ and condemning the acts of ‘Zionists,’” the statement said.
No further information was given by police about the alleged motivation for the attacks, other than that they were driven by a “violent extremist” ideology.
In addition to the weapons seized at the scene, police said searches of the Akrams’ home and the Airbnb turned up a “long bow with 12 arrows,” a homemade wooden firearm, a suspected explosive, 3-D-printed parts “for a shotgun speed loader,” two additional guns and bomb-making equipment.
Two homemade pipe bombs made of sealed aluminum piping, shown in images released by police.Supplied
The statement also includes a brief summary of an interview with Naveed Akram’s mother, who told police she believed her son and husband were on holiday in southern NSW, for which they had left about a week before the attack. Naveed would call his mother around 10:30 a.m. every day, she told police.
The statement makes no mention of the Philippines, where police previously said the Akrams spent most of November, travelling to the southern island of Mindanao, which has long been a hub of Islamic extremism.
In a video statement Sunday, Philippines Police Brigadier-General Victor Rosete confirmed reports that the Akrams had stayed at a budget hotel in Davao City “for almost a month.”
He added police had conducted “backtracking operations to establish their movements during their stay.”
“This included a review of CCTV, hotel records, travel data and other available intelligence information,” Mr. Rosete said. “We are also examining any activities they may have conducted during their stay, including identifying the individuals they interacted with and assessing possible links and support networks.”