Who were the Bondi gunmen? Backgrounds of Sajid and Naveed Akram, firearms access and ASIO attention

Bondi gunman Naveed Akram looked straight at a bystander, who was yelling at him to stop shooting towards a Jewish gathering at the iconic Sydney beach on Sunday night, and flicked him away like a mosquito.

Akram, with a high-powered bolt-action rifle in his hand, appeared unfazed by an audience filming his atrocity or the wailing sirens growing louder as he paced back and forth on a footbridge in between firing off bursts of bullets.

In one video captured of the shooting, a unidentified man’s voice can be heard loudly pleading — from a distance — with the gunman to stop: “Brus, come on. Come on brus. What are you doing?”

“No. Oh my god. Where are the cops?

“Bro, oi, bro.”

Akram, 24, stopped firing and looked towards the man before flicking his wrist, in a gesture to wave him away, and raised his weapon at him for a split second in an implicit warning to move along or he too would get shot.

Akram turned back towards his target — a gathering of the Jewish community to mark Hanukkah at Bondi Beach — and continued firing on the crowd from the pedestrian bridge that links Campbell Parade and Bondi Pavilion.

His co-offender and father, Sajid Akram, had left the footbridge to fire on the crowd from a closer position.

A few agonising minutes later, a police bullet appeared to hit Naveed. “They hit him,” a man can be heard saying.

Tonight the 24-year-old, born and raised in Australia, remains in hospital under police guard in a critical but stable condition.

His father, Sajid Akram, was shot dead by police at the scene.

On Sunday night, the two black-clad gunmen killed 15 innocent people, including a 10-year-old girl, and injured at least 40 at the Chanukah by the Sea event at the iconic Bondi Beach.

The pair, believed to be of Pakistani origin, staged the worst massacre in Australian history since Port Arthur was quickly declared a terror attack.

On Monday Anthony Albanese admitted Naveed had appeared on the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation’s radar more than six years ago.

“The son first came to (ASIO’s) attention in October 2019,” he said.

“He was examined on the basis of being associated with others, and the assessment was made that there was no indication of any ongoing threat or threat of him engaging in violence.

“ASIO (was aware of him) with respect to his associations, rather than at that point there being a personal (terrorism) motivation from him.”

The ABC reported Naveed came to ASIO’s attention due to his close ties to a Sydney-based Islamic State (IS) terrorism cell and that investigators from the Joint Counter Terrorism Team believe the gunmen had pledged allegiance to the IS terrorist group.

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke provided further details of the pair’s background, revealing Sajid, 50, had arrived here on a student visa in 1998.

Sajid, who owned a fruit shop, reportedly immigrated to Australia from Pakistan but Mr Burke would not confirm this.

In 2001, his visa was transferred to a partner visa. He has left Australia multiple times and had been on a resident return visa ever since.

On Monday, NSW Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon revealed Sajid had held a gun licence for recreational hunting and legally possessed six firearms.

Mr Lanyon said Sajid was eligible to have a gun licence and was a member of a gun club.

“The father has held a firearms licence since 2015,” he said.

“We are very much working through the background of both persons at this stage.

“We know very little about them.”

On Sunday night NSW police raided the Akram family’s home at Bonnyrigg in Western Sydney.

Police also raided an Airbnb in Campsie on Monday, which the father-son duo had rented before their horrific attack, and found more weapons.

In total, police seized six weapons at the Bondi crime scene and at the Campsie property and two explosive devices were found in a silver Honda near the scene on Campbell Parade.

“As part of the investigation, we conducted two search warrants last night, one at Bonnyrigg and a second at Campsie,” Mr Lanyon said.

“We are satisfied that we have six firearms from the scene (in Bondi) yesterday, but also as a result of the search warrant at the Campsie address.”

It has been reported that a black flag was seen on the bonnet of a silver Honda at the scene but Mr Lanyon has refused to confirm the reports, saying it would form part of the police investigation.

Mr Lanyon said Naveed would very likely face charges.

“What’s really important is to say that we do have a 24-year-old male in hospital at the moment, (and) based on his medical condition, it is likely that that person may face criminal charges,” he said.

“I’m very mindful of not prejudicing any prosecution of that person if they (are) put before the court.”

Naveed, an unemployed bricklayer, lived with his parents, Sajid and Verena, and two younger siblings at their Bonnyrigg home.

Property records indicate the low-set three bedroom brick home was purchased in February 2024 for $477,500.

The family previously lived in Cabramatta.

As their Bonnyrigg home was being raided by police on Sunday night, Verena told The Sydney Morning Herald that her husband and son had told her they were going fishing for the weekend at Jervis Bay.

“(Naveed) rings me up (on Sunday) and said, ‘Mum, I just went for a swim. I went scuba diving. We’re going … to eat now, and then this morning, and we’re going to stay home now because it’s very hot,” Verena said.

Verena was unable to identify her son as one of the alleged shooters after being shown a photograph.

“He doesn’t have a firearm. He doesn’t even go out. He doesn’t mix around with friends. He doesn’t drink, he doesn’t smoke, he doesn’t go to bad places … he goes to work, he comes home, he goes to exercise, and that’s it,” she said.

“Anyone would wish to have a son like my son … he’s a good boy.”

Naveed is reportedly an unemployed bricklayer who was laid off from his job about two months ago when the company folded.

He is understood to have attended Cabramatta High School.

A social media post from 2022 shows Naveed had passed his Koran studies at Sydney’s Al-Murad Institute, which teaches Arabic and Koran studies.

In February 2022, teacher Adam Ismail posted a photo of himself with Naveed which was captioned: “Another one of my dear students Naveed Akram passing the IQra book and tajweed this morning, perfecting his all (sic) the rules of tajweed”.

By Monday morning, the social media pages of both the teacher and the institute had been taken down.

On Sunday night ASIO boss Mike Burgess confirmed one of the gunmen was known to his agency.

“One of these individuals was known to us, but not in an immediate-threat perspective, so we need to look into what happened here,” he said.

Burgess dismissed concerns about whether the terrorism threat level should now be raised.

“One incident by itself does not necessarily raise the threat level at a national level,” he said.

However, ASIO would keep the threat level “under constant review”.