MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — A man accused of killing 15 people at Sydney’s Bondi Beach conducted “firearms training” with his father in an area outside Sydney, New South Wales, and recorded a video outlining their “rationale” for the attack, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported Monday, citing police documents.
Police released a statement of facts after Navid Akram appeared in court via video from a Sydney hospital on Monday.
The statement said the 24-year-old man and his 50-year-old father Sajid Akram threw four improvised explosive devices at crowds attending a Jewish event at Bondi Beach on December 14, but the devices did not explode, the ABC reported.
The NSW Courts Media Unit was not immediately able to provide a copy of the statement.
The police shot and killed the father on the spot and wounded the son.
The anti-Semitic attack at the start of eight days of Hanukkah celebrations was Australia’s worst mass shooting since a gunman killed 35 people in Tasmania in 1996.
The New South Wales government submitted a draft law to parliament on Monday, which Premier Chris Mining said would become the toughest law in Australia.
New restrictions will include making Australian citizenship a condition of obtaining a firearms licence. This would exclude Sajid Akram, who is an Indian citizen and holds an Australian permanent resident visa.
Sajid Akram also legally owned six rifles and shotguns. The new legal limit for recreational shooters is a maximum of four guns.
The son was charged last week with 59 charges, including 15 counts of murder, 40 counts of intentional murder causing harm to an injured survivor and one count of committing a terrorist act.
Police said a video showed the father and son expressing “political and religious views” and “seemingly summarizing their rationale for the terror attack on Bundy,” ABC reported.