New details have emerged revealing that the suspected gunman in the Bondi Beach attack, Naveed Akram, was previously interviewed by anti-terrorism police and monitored by Australia's security agency, years before his father was granted a firearms licence.
ASIO's Prior Knowledge and Monitoring
It was revealed on Wednesday that the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) placed Naveed Akram on its 'known entity management list' in 2021. The agency's interest in the alleged attacker dates back to July 2019, following the foiling of an Islamic State terror plot in Sydney and the arrest of operative Isaak El Matari.
ASIO monitored and interviewed the 24-year-old Akram, with a state security source confirming the agency then informed its New South Wales police counterparts. However, by 2020, ASIO determined that Akram did not pose an ongoing risk that justified continued surveillance. Detectives who also interviewed him reportedly reached the same conclusion.
"That is not to say that there will not be areas of improvement or mistakes that have been made," a security source told The Sydney Morning Herald. Another individual added that "police or ASIO can't engage in endless saturation surveillance in the absence of evidence."
The Path to a Firearms Licence
Three years after ASIO ended its monitoring, in 2023, Naveed's father, Sajid Akram, was granted a gun licence. Sajid, a licensed firearms holder, was shot dead by police after he opened fire at a Hanukkah by the Sea event at Bondi Beach on Sunday.
He legally owned six firearms, some of which were used in the deadly massacre. The revelation has sparked intense scrutiny of Australia's firearms monitoring systems, which critics describe as outdated and hampered by bureaucratic delays.
Authorities are now probing the Akrams' alleged links to Islamic extremism. Explosives and homemade IS flags were found in a car registered to Naveed at the scene. The pair had also allegedly filmed an ISIS-style propaganda video at their rented Airbnb before the attack.
Calls for Urgent Reform and System Overhaul
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese admitted there were "real issues" with intelligence and policing coordination. "We need to examine exactly the way that systems work," he stated, pledging to review the 2019 assessment of Naveed Akram and the interaction between Commonwealth and state agencies.
The tragedy has accelerated calls for urgent reform of firearm legislation and the long-delayed National Firearms Register. This system, run by the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission, aims to centralise gun owner data but has faced poor buy-in from some states with antiquated records.
"The very nature of our gun laws means that they are only as strong as the weakest link," Albanese said. The government is now considering measures including limiting the number of guns an individual can own, requiring citizenship for ownership, and fast-tracking the national register.
Another key line of inquiry is the pair's one-month trip to the Philippines in November, with their final destination being Davao City in Mindanao—a region known as a hotbed for Islamic militant activity for decades.
