Refuses to testify
59 charges against Sydney bomber
Updated 12/17/2025 – 8:14 a.mReading time: 3 minutes
The only surviving Bondi Beach attacker has woken up from his coma. He faces 59 charges.
Three days after the devastating attack on Bondi Beach in Sydney, the survivor of the two attackers was charged with 15 counts of murder and terrorism. In total, Naveed Akram is charged with 59 crimes, according to police in the Australian state of New South Wales. He is also accused of planting explosive devices in or near a building with the intent to cause damage. According to The Sydney Morning Herald newspaper, the gunman, who was seriously injured in hospital, refused to make a statement.
He faces charges including 15 murders, a terrorist act and 40 counts of assault with intent to kill. There are also charges of placing explosives near a building, a charge of discharging a firearm with intent to cause serious bodily harm and a charge of publicly displaying a terrorist symbol.
Akram and his father opened fire on the celebrating crowd on the beach during the Jewish festival of lights, Hanukkah, on Sunday. They killed 15 people and injured dozens. The 50-year-old father was shot dead by police at the scene, his son was arrested and taken to hospital with life-threatening gunshot wounds.
Three days after the attack, 21 injured people are still being treated in hospital. Five of them were recently in critical condition (as of Wednesday lunchtime local time), four of them were stable, as the health authorities in the state of New South Wales announced. It remained unclear whether the surviving assassin was included.
It is now certain that the perpetrators had connections to the terrorist organization Islamic State (IS). According to authorities, several explosive devices and two homemade IS flags were found in the son’s car.
According to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Australia’s domestic intelligence agency investigated the then-teenager six years ago for links to an IS terrorist cell in Sydney. The question was raised in the Australian media as to why the father was granted a firearms license in 2023 even though the son had previously been targeted by anti-terror investigators.
“We have to look back at what happened in 2019 when they investigated this man, what conclusions were drawn back then,” Albanese told ABC Newsradio. Everything needs to be put to the test, including the cooperation between secret services, security authorities and the police.
It is now known that the two attackers were in the Philippines for a month shortly before the attack, where, according to research by Australian media, they received “military-like training” on the island of Mindanao. ISIS is active in the Philippines through local jihadist groups. According to the immigration authorities in Manila, the father is from India and lived in Australia, and the son was born in Australia.
