Bondi Beach terror suspect loses bid to hide family identities
Naveed Akram, 24, is accused of carrying out Australia’s worst mass shooting since 1996, shooting 15 people dead when targeting a Hanukkah event at the popular beach in Australia in December
A man accused of being the Bondi Beach terror attacker that killed 15 people has lost a bid to have the identities of his family members suppressed.
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Naveed Akram, 24, is accused of carrying out Australia’s worst mass shooting since 1996, shooting 15 people dead when targeting a Hanukkah event at the popular beach in Australia in December.
He has been charged with 15 counts of murder and one count of committing a terrorist act over the attack, in which dozens of people were also injured at Sydney’s Archer Park.
Read more: Bondi Beach’s terror attack shattered a place of joy, and its security lessons are painfully clear
His father, Sajid, 50, was shot dead by police at the scene.
Akram appeared via video link during a hearing at Downing Centre Local Court in Sydney on Thursday, after applying for a non-publication order relating to the details of his immediate family members.
Local Court Judge Hugh Donnelly dismissed the application and an interim suppression order that had temporarily blocked the publication of the names and addresses of Akram’s mother, brother, and sister, according to New South Wales (NSW) courts.
Among the victims of the terror attacks was London-born Rabbi Eli Schlanger, 41, a father of five and assistant rabbi at Chabad of Bondi.
According to police, the father and son parked their vehicle near a footbridge overlooking Archer Park at Bondi at about 6.50pm on December 14.
It is alleged that a “tennis ball bomb” and three pipe bombs were thrown into the crowd before the pair opened fire.
None of the bombs detonated, but were deemed viable during preliminary police analysis.
In December, court documents made public allegations by police that Sajid and Naveed Akram visited the area for “reconnaissance and planning” in the days before the attack.
Police also accused the pair of conducting firearms training in the Australian countryside.
Akram will return to court on Wednesday.