Bondi Beach shooting suspect charged with terrorism and 15 counts of murder

( NBC )

Australian authorities on Wednesday charged the surviving suspect in the Bondi Beach shooting with 59 offenses, including terrorism and 15 counts of murder.

Naveed Akram, 24, was charged after waking from a coma in a Sydney hospital having been shot by police. He is alleged to have carried out the ISIS-inspired attack on a Hanukkah celebration alongside his father, 50-year-old Sajid Akram.

The charges came as the first funerals for the victims were held under tight security, not far from the scene of the antisemitic massacre. Investigators were meanwhile turning their attention to the suspects' alleged ISIS connection, including a trip to a southern island of the Philippines — seen in the past as a hotspot for extremism.

Akram was also charged with 40 counts of causing grievous bodily harm with intent to murder and one count each of committing a terrorist act, discharging firearms, placing explosives and publicly displaying a terrorist organization symbol, New South Wales police said.

“Police will allege in court the man engaged in conduct that caused death, serious injury and endangered life to advance a religious cause and cause fear in the community,” police said in a statement.

The department said early indicators pointed to a “terrorist attack inspired by ISIS.”

The second suspect, Akram’s 50-year-old father Sajid, was shot dead by police officers at the scene on Sunday. The younger Akram was critically wounded, police said; earlier Wednesday, they said they were waiting for his condition to stabilize before they brought charges against him.

“It’s important he has appropriate cognitive ability. For his fairness, we need him to understand what is exactly happening,” NSW Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon said.

The two suspects are alleged to have targeted the Jewish community by unleashing a volley of bullets at a Hanukkah celebration on the iconic beach. A 10-year-old girl, a Holocaust survivor and a rabbi were among the dead, with dozens more injured.

Two police officers were also injured in the attack, NSW Police said. Five people were still in critical condition Wednesday, New South Wales' health department said Wednesday.

The police officers and civilians who tried to take down the gunmen have drawn an outpouring of praise.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Wednesday hailed the heroic act of an elderly couple who were killed after trying to tackle and disarm one of the shooters, a dramatic intervention captured on dashcam footage. "These are Australian heroes," he said of Boris and Sofia Gurman, both in their 60s.

Albanese also offered renewed praise for Ahmed al Ahmed, a 43-year-old Syrian Australian shop owner who was seen in a video tackling one of the shooters from behind and wrestling away his gun. "Our thoughts are with him today because he is undergoing surgery today on his injuries," Albanese told reporters.

The local council on Wednesday called on the community to light a candle every night at 6:47 p.m. — around the time of the attack on Sunday — to honor the victims for the duration of the Hanukkah festival, which ends Monday.

The massacre at a beach that is a free-wheeling symbol of the Australian way of life has sent ripples of shock and grief across the nation.

Police said they had partially opened road access to the area around Bondi Beach but were maintaining a crime scene.

The attack has set off a renewed scrutiny of the country’s already strict gun laws and criticism that the government ignored warning signs amid a spate of antisemitic incidents.

“We can’t get around the fact that a fellow was able to get a gun license, have six guns, four of which were used in this attack,” Albanese told Australia’s ABC radio Wednesday.

The younger suspect, Akram, was investigated in 2019 for six months over his alleged extremist associations by Australia’s domestic intelligence agency but police said it was determined that he posed no threat.

Two homemade Islamic State flags were found in the younger suspect's car, police said Tuesday, adding that the pair flew to the Philippines in the month prior to the attack.

Philippine authorities said Tuesday the father, an Indian national, and the son, an Australian national, spent a month in the country and flew to Davao, a coastal commercial city that is also the main gateway to areas where extremists have held a presence.

The Philippines pushed back Wednesday on its portrayal as an ISIS training hotspot and said there was so far no clear evidence that the suspects had received training in the country.

“The President strongly rejects the sweeping statement and the misleading characterization of the Philippines as the ISIS training hotspot,” spokesperson Claire Castro said in a press briefing on Wednesday.

She said that the country's military had significantly weakened ISIS-affiliated groups in recent years. “Both United Nations and the U.S. Government assessments indicate that these groups now operate in a fragmented and diminished capacity," Castro added.