Police say an investigation that extended to the Philippines of two men accused of killing 15 people at a Sydney Jewish festival has found no evidence they were part of a “broader terrorist cell.”
An investigation that extended to the Philippines of two men accused of shooting dead 15 people at a Sydney Jewish festival has found no evidence that they were part of a “broader terrorist cell,” police said.
Sydney residents Sajid Akram, 50, and his 24-year-old son Naveed Akram spent most of November in Davao City in the southern Philippines, Australian Federal Police Commissioner Krissy Barrett said. They returned on a flight from Manila on Nov. 29. Two weeks later, they are accused of killing 15 and wounding another 40 in a mass shooting that targeted a Hannukah festival at Bondi Beach. Police allege the pair were inspired by the Islamic State group. The southern Philippines once drew small numbers of foreign militants aligned with the Islamic State group or al-Qaida to train in a secessionist conflict involving minority Muslims in the largely Catholic nation.
Barrett said she was limited in what she could disclose about the investigation in the Philippines because she did not want to prejudice Naveed Akram’s trial. He has yet to enter pleas to dozens of charges including 15 counts of murder and one of committing a terrorist act. Police shot him in the abdomen during a gunfight at Bondi on Dec. 14 and he spent a week in a hospital before he was transferred to a prison. Police shot his father dead at Bondi.