By Alasdair Pal and Karen Lema
SYDNEY/MANILA, Dec 16 (Reuters) – Standing in the rain outside a suburban Sydney train station, seventeen-year-old Naveed Akram stares into the camera and urges those watching to spread the word of Islam.
“Spread the message that Allah is One wherever you can … whether it be raining, hailing or clear sky,” he said.
Another since-deleted video posted in 2019 by Street Dawah Movement, a Sydney-based Islamic community group, shows him urging two young boys to pray more frequently.
Authorities are now trying to piece together what happened in the intervening six years that led a teenager volunteering to hand out pamphlets for a non-violent community group to allegedly carry out Australia’s worst mass shooting in decades.
Akram, who remains under heavy guard in hospital after being shot by police, was briefly investigated by Australia’s domestic intelligence agency in 2019 for links to individuals connected to Islamic State, but authorities found he did not have extremist tendencies at the time.
“In the years that followed, that changed,” Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said on Tuesday.
Police have not formally identified Naveed Akram, 24, as one of the alleged gunmen who killed 15 people at a Jewish event on a Sydney beach on Sunday. His father Sajid Akram, 50, is the other gunman who was shot and killed by police, local media reported.
Officials have said the second gunman is the deceased man’s son and is in a critical condition in hospital.
MOTIVATED BY ISLAMIC STATE
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Tuesday the attack was likely motivated by the ideology of Islamic State, but that the two men appeared to have acted alone.
Homemade IS flags were found in the suspects’ car after Sunday’s attack, and police said on Tuesday the pair had last month visited the Philippines, where offshoots of the militant group have a presence.
A spokesperson for the Philippines Bureau of Immigration said Akram, an Australian national, arrived in the country on November 1 with his father, who was travelling on an Indian passport.
Both reported Davao as their final destination, the main city on Mindanao island, which has a history of Islamist insurgency.
A months-long conflict on the island in 2017 between armed forces and two militant groups linked to IS left over a thousand dead and a million displaced, though the country’s military says these groups are now fragmented and weakened.
The pair left the Philippines on November 28, two weeks before Sunday’s attack using high-powered shotguns and rifles.
‘NEVER DID ANYTHING UNUSUAL’
Local media reported that Akram, an unemployed bricklayer, attended high school in Cabramatta, a suburb around 30 kilometres by road from Sydney’s central business district and close to the family’s current home in Bonnyrigg, which was raided by police after the attacks.
“I could have never imagined in 100 years that this could be his doing,” former classmate Steven Luong told The Daily Mail.
“He was a very nice person. He never did anything unusual. He never even interrupted in class.”
After leaving school, Akram showed a keen interest in Islam, seeking tutoring and attending several Street Dawah Movement events. The group confirmed he appeared in the videos.
“We at Street Dawah Movement are horrified by his actions and we are appalled by his criminal behaviour,” the group said in a statement, adding Akram had attended several events in 2019 but was not a member of the organisation.
Months after the videos were posted, Akram approached tutor Adam Ismail seeking tuition in Arabic and the Koran, studying with him for a combined period of one year.
Ismail’s language institute posted a photo in 2022, since deleted, showing Akram smiling while holding a certificate in Koranic recitation.
“Not everyone who recites the Koran understands it or lives by its teachings, and sadly, this appears to be the case here,” Ismail said in a video statement late on Monday.
“I condemn this act of violence without hesitation.”
EARLIER TIES TO ISLAMIC STATE NOT PROVEN
Two of the people he was associated with in 2019 were charged and went to jail but Akram was not seen at that time to be a person of interest, Albanese said.
However he was radicalised, Akram’s journey from a teenager interested in Islam to one of Australia’s worst alleged killers has taken not just the public, but also law enforcement by surprise.
“We are very much working through the background of both persons,” New South Wales Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon told reporters on Monday.
“At this stage, we know very little about them.”
(Reporting by Alasdair Pal in Sydney and Karen Lema in Manila; Editing by Saad Sayeed)
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