By Mike Cherney and Jon Emont
SYDNEY -- When the Bondi Beach terror suspects drove their 2001 silver Hyundai Elantra from a rented Airbnb to a Hanukkah festival, they were armed to the teeth with two single-barreled shotguns, a Beretta rifle, pipe bombs, a "tennis ball bomb" and another improvised explosive device.
A video recorded in October by the father-son pair suggests they were also armed with something else: the conviction that they were acting on behalf of a movement larger than themselves. In the video, court documents released Monday say, the two men sit in front of an image of an Islamic State flag, with four guns resting against a wood-paneled wall, and condemn the acts of "Zionists."
The court documents reveal what police say were the movements and motivation of Sajid and Naveed Akram in the months, days and minutes before they fired on the Dec. 14 celebration of the Jewish holiday in a park at Bondi Beach, killing 15 people and injuring more than three dozen.
Sajid Akram, 50 years old, was killed in a shootout with police. His son, Naveed Akram, 24, was wounded but survived and now faces 59 charges, including terrorism and 15 counts of murder. It was Australia's deadliest mass shooting in nearly 30 years.
The story of Naveed Akram, supported by new information presented to the court by police, fits what has become a classic profile of an Islamic State-inspired "lone wolf": a disaffected young man with extremist views who, working by himself or sometimes with the help of family, carries out a deadly act of terrorism.
Though no evidence was presented to suggest a complex web of terrorist cells, the Bondi Beach attack was planned well in advance, according to police.
On Oct. 20, nearly two months before the attack on the first night of Hanukkah, the Akrams booked a room for much of December in an Airbnb in a southwestern Sydney suburb, which police say served as a staging site for the attack. The video with the Islamic State flag was also recorded that month.
Another video from October shows the two men training with firearms in a countryside location that police suspect to be in New South Wales, the state that includes Sydney. The footage shows them firing shotguns and moving in a tactical manner.
The pair amassed a significant arsenal. In the Airbnb, police would find a firearm scope, another suspected IED, 3D-printed parts for a shotgun speed loader, a rifle, a shotgun and bomb making equipment. There were also two copies of the Quran, one with an earmarked page, according to the documents, which didn't specify which page or why it was included in the evidence.
Elsewhere in the suburbs at the Akrams' family home, police would find a homemade wooden firearm, a longbow with 12 arrows, and a copy of the Quran with passages highlighted, again unspecified.
Akram's mother told police she thought her husband and son were away on vacation.
Amid the evidence, investigators have yet to explain how the pair became radicalized to the point of carrying out such an attack, and why authorities didn't pick up on it.
"Compared to all the previous IS attacks in Australia, this is a much more sophisticated, well-planned operation, with a much, much more specific target," said Levi West, a terrorism expert at Australian National University.
Sajid Akram is originally from Hyderabad, India, and migrated to Australia in 1998. Naveed was born in Australia a few years later.
Naveed, who has worked as a bricklayer, became involved in conservative Islamic circles in Sydney. In 2019, when he was 17, he attended volunteer events held by Street Dawah Movement, a Muslim group that describes itself as an outreach center. He also began taking Quranic recitation and Arabic lessons at Sydney's Al-Murad Institute.
Street Dawah Movement and Naveed's teacher at Al-Murad Institute have condemned the Bondi Beach attack and said they haven't been involved with Naveed for years.
Also in 2019, Naveed and family members were interviewed by the Australian Security Intelligence Organization, Australia's domestic intelligence agency, based on Naveed's association with two people who were charged and sent to prison, Australia's prime minister has said.
At the time, Naveed wasn't deemed a person of interest.
A red flag may have been raised in 2020 when Sajid applied for a firearms license. It wasn't granted until 2023, an unusually long time for the process, according to people familiar with gun laws in Australia, where firearms rules are strict.
"Most people would be outraged if it took that long to get their license, " said Tom Kenyon, national chief executive for the Sporting Shooters' Association of Australia. "I'd be very keen to understand what happened there."
Sajid was eligible for a firearms license for recreational hunting and was a member of a gun club, according to police. Ultimately, he obtained permission for six firearms.
Australian terrorism experts said the substantial arsenal distinguished Bondi Beach from previous Islamic State-linked attacks in Australia. As Western intelligence agencies have improved their monitoring of terrorism networks in recent years, many attackers inspired by Islamic State have used what weapons they have on hand, such as knives or cars to ram crowds.
For the Akrams, family was also an advantage. Traditional counterterrorism tactics like infiltrating radical networks won't easily catch plots hatched in the living room.
Many other Islamic State-inspired attacks followed the family pattern, including the 2015 San Bernardino, Calif., shootings committed by a husband and wife, and the 2016 attacks on the Brussels transportation network backed by two brothers.
In the month ahead of the attack, the father and son visited the southern Philippines, an area with a history of Islamic insurgency, including from militants who pledged loyalty to Islamic State. But in recent years, the country's military has subdued many groups and the Philippine government has said there is no evidence the Akrams received military training in the country.
The pair largely kept to their room in a Davao City hotel, aside from quick trips out, and their visit there remains a subject of speculation. Terrorism experts say it is possible the men traveled to the Philippines hoping to link up with a militant group but failed to make the right connections.
The Akrams left Davao City, bound for Sydney, on Nov. 28. Their Airbnb rental would be available within a few days.
Two days before the attack, closed-circuit TV footage appears to show the Akrams scoping out the attack site, including walking along the same footbridge from which the shooters fired at the festival goers.
At about 2:16 a.m. on Dec. 14, the day of the assault, CCTV shows the Akrams leaving the Airbnb, carrying long and bulky items wrapped in blankets. They placed the items in their car.
Later that day, CCTV captured the car making its way toward Bondi Beach. Around 6:50 p.m., the car was seen parked near the footbridge at Bondi Beach.
After parking, the Akrams removed Islamic State flags from the vehicle and placed them on the inside of the front and rear windscreens. As the men approached the footbridge, police said they believed the three pipe bombs and the tennis ball bomb were thrown toward a crowd of people in the park where the Hanukkah festival was being held.
The pipe bombs didn't detonate, police said. It is unclear what happened with the tennis ball bomb.
Soon after, the two men began firing into the crowd.
Write to Mike Cherney at mike.cherney@wsj.com and Jon Emont at jonathan.emont@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
December 22, 2025 06:11 ET (11:11 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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