MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — A man accused of shooting dead 15 people at Sydney’s Bondi Beach in an antisemitic attack faced a lengthy delay in getting a gun license because of a bureaucratic mishap, not because he raised suspicions, a state government leader said on Tuesday.
Sajid Akram, who was killed by police during the attack, and his 24-year-old son Naveed Akram are accused of assailing hundreds of Jews celebrating Hanukkah on Dec. 14, in Australia’s
worst mass shooting since 1996.
Questions have been raised about how the 50-year-old father came to legally own six rifles and shotguns.
New South Wales Premier Chris Minns on Tuesday confirmed that the father applied for a state license to own firearms in 2000, three years before it was granted. The process typically takes six to 10 weeks.
“The latest information that we have is that there was a real mess in relation to the bureaucracy when it comes to gun licenses and the delays related to that — not a specific threat” posed by the father, Minns told reporters.
Reporters asked Minns on Monday why the father was allowed to own guns when he shared his Sydney home with Naveed Akram, who had been investigated in 2019 by the spy agency Australian Security Intelligence Organization over his extremist links.
“I don’t know. I’d give anything to go back a week, month, two years, to ensure that didn’t happen. But we need to make sure that we take steps so that it never happens again,” Minns said.
A wide ranging and powerful form of public investigation known as a royal commission will examine circumstances surrounding the massacre and the surge of antisemitism in Australia since the war between Israel and Hamas began in 2023.
New South Wales Parliament was asked this week to pass laws that Minns said would provide the state with Australia’s toughest gun laws.
Experts say video of the attack show the gunmen apparently using guns with straight-pull mechanisms, which enable more rapid fire than a comparable bolt-action mechanism.
Straight-pull guns would not be available to recreational shooters such as Sajid Akram under the proposed new laws.
The new restrictions would include making Australian citizenship a condition of qualifying for a gun license. That would have excluded Sajid Akram, who was an Indian citizen with a permanent resident visa.
A government decision to refuse a gun license, for reasons including spy agencies’ suspicions, could no longer be appealed under the proposed reforms.
Recreational shooters would be allowed to own a maximum of four guns. Farmers and sports shooters would be allowed up to 10.
There are currently no limits in New South Wales. One individual currently has 298 guns registered in his name.
Farmers’ groups have complained that 10 guns won’t be enough for some. The Nationals party, which represents rural voters, opposed the proposed laws.
“The NSW Nationals Parliamentary team will not be supporting the Bill that uses gun reforms as a political tool rather than addressing the real issue of antisemitism,” a party statement said.
Police allege in court documents the Akrams adhered to a "religiously motivated ideology linked to Islamic State.”
Police shot Naveed Akram in the abdomen during the massacre. He was in Sydney’s Long Bay Correctional Complex on Tuesday after being transferred from a hospital on Monday.
He was charged last week with 59 offenses, including 15 counts of murder, 40 counts of causing harm with intent to murder in relation to the wounded survivors and one count of committing a terrorist act.
Victims' funerals continued on Tuesday. A service for Marika Pogany, 82, was held at a Catholic church in Sydney. She was Christian, but her mother was Jewish and she was close to Sydney’s Jewish community.
The health department said 12 people wounded in the attack remained in hospitals on Tuesday, including four in critical condition.
A gunman armed with semiautomatic rifles killed 35 people at Port Arthur in Tasmania in 1996, leading Australia to make major national gun reforms that drastically reduced the number of rapid-fire weapons in the community.
