Bondi Beach killer Naveed Akram appeared in a Sydney court for the first time via video link on Monday. Akram, 24, faces 59 charges, including 15 counts of murder and one of committing a terrorist attack at an outdoor Chanukah party in December.
The case was mentioned before a court in December, but it is the first time Akram has been seen on screen since his arrest, ABC Australia reported.
Akram’s father, Sajid Akram, was killed by police during the shooting at Bondi on Dec. 14. The two attacked the “Chanukah by the Sea” event in Archer Park, which hundreds of people attended and was organized by the Chabad-Lubavitch movement.
Fifteen people were shot dead, and more than three-dozen others were injured.
“Wearing a green prison jumper with his hands on his lap, Akram sat in front of a table and spoke only when Deputy Chief Magistrate Sharon Freund asked if he heard a discussion about an extension of suppression orders,” ABC Australia reported. “‘Yeah,’ he replied.”
Suppression orders protect the identities of survivors of the shooting. Survivors can self-identify if they wish.
Akram’s lawyer, Ben Archbold, said it was premature to say what plea his client would enter.
Akram is being held in Goulburn Supermax prison. Archbold said he had visited him there. Asked how his client seemed during the visit, he said: “He’s just a client, and he’s a client that needs to be represented, and we don’t let our personal view get in the way of our professional obligations.”
Asked whether Akram had given a police interview, Archbold said, “All we’ve done is start the process. We’re waiting for the brief to be served. There’s nothing more I can say.”
In December, court documents were released with police allegations that Naveed and Sajid Akram conducted firearms training in regional New South Wales in October.
In a video they filmed, the two are seen “firing shotguns and moving in a tactical manner,” police said.
In a separate video, found on Naveed Akram’s phone, the men sit in front of an Islamic State flag and firearms.
Naveed Akram recites a passage from the Koran in Arabic before both men “make a number of statements regarding their motivation for the Bondi attack and condemning the acts of ‘Zionists,’” police said, according to court documents.
The documents also say that when the two reached Archer Park, they threw several improvised explosive devices into the crowd, which failed to detonate.
The case is scheduled to reconvene in court in April.
Australian Prime Minister Antony Albanese told a press conference following the massacre that it was “an act of evil antisemitism, terrorism, that has struck the heart of our nation. An attack on Jewish Australians is an attack on every Australian.”
