The mother of a 24-year-old terrorist who carried out a terror attack during a Hanukkah event in Australia has said she didn’t believe her son could be involved in any violent or extremist activities, The Sydney Morning Herald reported.
Naveed Akram, an unemployed bricklayer, and his father, Sajid Akram, a fruiterer, opened fire on the crowd in Archer Park at Bondi Beach in Sydney, New Wales on Sunday, December 14, 2025, k!lling 16 people.
“Anyone would wish to have a son like my son … he’s a good boy,” Verena said on Monday morning as police surrounded the family home at Bonnyrigg.
Akram was looking for work after being laid off from his bricklaying job about two months ago when the company he worked for became insolvent.
“While he had many friends during his high school days at Cabramatta High School, he wasn’t particularly social,” Verena said.
She said he didn’t appear to spend a lot of time online. He loved fishing, scuba diving, swimming and exercising.
Akram appeared to be tagged in a 2022 social media post showing he had passed his Koran studies at Al-Murad Institute, which teaches Arabic and Koran studies in Heckenberg, also in western Sydney. The post has since been removed.
Akram’s mother is a stay-at-home parent, caring for her elderly mother nearby. Akram lived at the property with his parents and younger sister, 22, and brother, 20. The three-bedroom property was bought in 2024. The family previously lived in Cabramatta.
According to Australian media, father and son told their family they were on a fishing trip in Jervis Bay over the weekend.
But the pair, who had just returned from a trip to the Philippines, a known breeding ground for Islamic extremism, were actually holed up in a small, grey brick home in Campsie. The short-term rental lets out rooms to travellers by the night.
“He rings me up [on Sunday] and said, ‘Mum, I just went for a swim. I went scuba diving. We’re going … to eat now, and then this morning, and we’re going to stay home now because it’s very hot’,” Verena said.
CCTV footage obtained by this masthead and Nine News shows Sajid and then Naveed walking from 103 Brighton Avenue, Campsie, about 5.15pm on Sunday, shortly after that call.
The second figure, believed to be Naveed dressed in black, appears to adjust something in the rear of the car before getting into the driver’s seat of the silver hatchback.
The car pulls away and begins its 40-minute trip east.
Less than 90 minutes later, the first shots rang out at Bondi Beach.
Father and son opened fire into a crowd gathered to celebrate Hanukkah.
Their rampage left 16 dead and scores injured.
Sajid was shot and killed at the scene by police. Naveed was also shot and remains in a critical condition in hospital.
Naveed is showing signs he will survive his injuries, sources said.
The gunmen had visited the Philippines just weeks before their attack, multiple police sources confirmed on Monday.
The Australian Federal Police is expected to investigate where, and why, the men visited in November.
Police were already investigating links to Islamic State terror ideology after a black IS flag was found in their car in Bondi, along with improvised explosive devices.
The Islamic State of East Asia, a branch of the terror group, has been a proscribed terrorist group by the Australian government since 2017.
“While there are no known links between ISEA and Australia, there have previously been links between Australians and terrorist groups in the Philippines,” a briefing document reads.
Police recovered four weapons at the scene and on Monday afternoon seized two more from the rented room in Campsie. Officers came and went from the home all day, wearing ballistic vests until the weapons could be removed in large paper evidence bags.
Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said on Monday that Sajid “arrived in 1998 on a student visa, transferred in 2001 to a partner visa and after trips overseas has been on resident return visas, which occurred three times”. Naveed was born in Australia.
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