New Zealand terror attack: 'Violent extremist' carried out stabbings in supermarket - Jacinda Ardern

[MenInG]

A man, inspired by ISIS ideology, who entered a New Zealand supermarket and stabbed at least six people was a "violent extremist" known to the police, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has said.

The man was shot and killed by police within 60 seconds of beginning his attack, which wounded at least six people at a Countdown store in the city.

The man was a Sri Lankan national and had been living in New Zealand since 2011.

"A violent extremist undertook a terrorist attack on innocent New Zealanders," Jacinda Ardern told a briefing on Friday.

He had been known to multiple agencies since 2016, with Ms Ardern confirming she had been personally aware of the individual - adding that she was personally gutted to hear what had happened.

She said: "This was someone who was known to our national security agencies and was of concern and was being monitored constantly. There are very few that fall into this category."

Police following the man thought he had gone into the New Lynn supermarket to do some shopping but he pulled out what one witness described as a large knife and started stabbing people.

"There's someone here with a knife ... he's got a knife," a woman is heard saying in one video, posted online after the attack.

Another recorded the sound of ten shots being fired in rapid succession.

"We were doing absolutely everything possible to monitor him and indeed the fact that we were able to intervene so quickly, in roughly 60 seconds, shows just how closely we were watching him," Police Commissioner Andrew Coster said.

Described as a "lone wolf", Ms Ardern said the attacker was a "supporter of ISIS" and inspired by extremist ideology.

The man was not allowed to be kept in prison by law, she said.

Of the six wounded people, three were in critical condition, one in serious condition and another in moderate condition, the St John Ambulance Service said in a statement to Reuters.

Ms Ardern said any backlash against the Muslim community "would be wrong", and said the attacker "is who is responsible, no one else".

"What happened today was despicable, it was hateful, it was wrong. It was carried out by an individual, not a faith," she added.

The security in the country will remain at a medium level.

New Zealand has been on alert for attacks since a white supremacist gunman killed 51 people at two mosques in the city of Christchurch on March 15, 2019. In May, four people were stabbed in a supermarket in Dunedin on New Zealand's South Island.

Auckland is on a strict lockdown as it battles an outbreak of the coronavirus. Most businesses \are shut and people are generally only allowed to leave their homes to buy groceries, for medical needs, or to exercise.

https://news.sky.com/story/new-zeal...ngs-in-shopping-centre-jacinda-arden-12398045

 

[Space Cat]

Deeply conerning this disturbed man was allowed to go about his life while under police surveillance. And then carry out this attack while they are watching him.

Should of been deported.

 

[hussain.r97]

Deeply conerning this disturbed man was allowed to go about his life while under police surveillance. And then carry out this attack while they are watching him.

Should of been deported.

It's ridiculous that the High Court determined that planning a terror attack is not a criminal offense under the current laws.... Clearly something very wrong.

 

[MenInG]

The man who was shot dead by police after attacking a number of people at an Auckland supermarket had just last month been sentenced to one year of supervision for possessing Isis propaganda that promoted terrorism.

The Crown had sought to charge him under the Terrorism Suppression Act but the application was declined.

The man, who has name suppression, faced trial at the High Court at Auckland where a jury found him guilty of two charges of possessing objectionable publications and failing to comply with a search.

She found he had an “operative interest” in the terrorist organisation, and a report writer concluded he “had the means and motivation to commit violence in the community”.

On Friday, the man, a Sri Lankan national, was shot dead by police after he stabbed multiple people at the Countdown supermarket in West Auckland’s LynnMall.

At his trial earlier this year he was acquitted of a third charge of possessing another objectionable publication – a video showing people being killed.

He was also acquitted of possessing a knife without lawful authority.

The Crown’s case was that the nasheeds – chants or hymns with still imagery –possessed by the man were “clearly designed” to inspire and celebrate the cause of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (Isis).

Michelle Miller was doing her afternoon shop at the LynnMall Countdown when a terrorist struck, stabbing multiple people.

One of the nasheeds showed a single still image of a figure carrying a machine gun and the Isis flag with the lyrics referencing violent acts, including decapitation and terrorism.

The second nasheed explicitly encouraged terrorist attacks on the countries of other belief systems.

A pre-sentence report writer concluded the man supported the goals of Isis and posed a high risk of reoffending and a harm to others.

Risk factors included the man’s extreme attitudes, sense of entitlement and isolated lifestyle, Justice Fitzgerald said.

The man’s special conditions on supervision meant he was prohibited from possessing any electronic device capable of accessing the internet, apart from a pre-approved device.

He was also required to surrender his devices and social media for probation and police checks.

“He has been a real concern to the Crown for a number of years and those concerns remain.”

This was essentially repeat offending, and he had not had opportunity to access rehabilitation, Steele said.

At trial, the man took to the stand in his own defence claiming he was only learning about his religion and he was put in jail because he is Muslim.

His internet search history and bookmarks included: Islamic State dress, New Zealand prison clothes and food, improvised explosive devices, heroes of Isis, and an Isis-issued booklet on how to avoid being detected by Western security, the court heard.

The defendant told the jury his internet searches were simply him checking on something he had read on the news.

He also said a search that included the keywords: “Captive by the enemies of Allah”, was only used to check his spelling.

The man had previously been charged in 2017 for possessing publications of similar nature, and admitted possessing restricted material.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/cr...been-sentenced-for-possessing-isis-propaganda

 

[Bewal Express]

Thankfully no one died -This is another terrible attack from these losers.

 

[WhenSultansBowled]

She said: "This was someone who was known to our national security agencies and was of concern and was being monitored constantly. There are very few that fall into this category."

ISIS are very desperate to stay relevant.

Time for security agencies to up their game!

 

[JaDed]

New Zealand has some weird laws, a totally avoidable incident.

 

[MenInG]

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says the Government will now overhaul terrorism laws by the end of the month, in the wake of a knife attack committed by a terrorist who was under police surveillance.

Ardern fronted a press conference on Saturday afternoon with further details about the man behind the attack, including the efforts taken by police to keep the man in custody or GPS monitored in the community, as concern about the risk he posed grew.

She also said the Government had sought to hurry changes to the terrorism laws in the months after the man was released into the community. The justice minister made a phone call to make this happen the day the attack happened.

“We must be willing to make the changes that we know may not necessarily have changed history, but could change the future,” she said.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said changes to terrorism law were already under way, and she wanted them implemented by the end of September.

The 32-year-old man, who cannot be named due to court suppressions, entered a Countdown supermarket in New Lynn, Auckland on Friday afternoon and stabbed seven people, leaving three in a critical condition, with a knife picked up from the store’s shelf.

The man had been under 24/7 surveillance by police, and officers within minutes shot the man dead. He was a supporter of the extremist ideology of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (Isis), a designated terror group.

"When you have a highly motivated lone actor, like this individual, it is incredibly tough,” Ardern said.

How the terrorist was handled

Ardern on Saturday gave more details about the terrorist’s criminal history, having been liberated from a court suppression that Crown lawyers sought to remove late on Friday evening.

But particular details about the man’s immigration status remained suppressed, with the courts allowing his family 24 hours to contest information being released.

The man’s name continued to be suppressed.

“This is not something I had intended to share regardless,” Ardern said.

Ardern said the man came to New Zealand in 2011 as a 22-year-old, travelling on a student visa. Whether he held extremist views at the time was unknown.

He first came to the attention of the police in 2016 after posting extremist material and reposting videos on Facebook. The videos were about war and violence, including a terror bombing in Europe. He was spoken to twice by police that year, in April and May.

He was then arrested at Auckland International Airport in May 2017, as police believed he was travelling to Syria to join Isis.

A search of his home found a hunting knife and “restricted publications”. He was charged with possession, pled guilty to knowingly distributing restricted publications, fraud, and failing to assist police with a search and was released on bail.

After two days on bail, he bought another knife. He was arrested again, more extremist, objectionable material was found, and he was placed in custody.

He was in custody for years while facing these charges. And attempt to prosecute him under the Terrorism Suppression Act, in July 2020, failed.

He remained in custody awaiting sentencing for other charges, and during this time he assaulted corrections officers – leading to further charges.

He was convicted of charged of possession of objectionable material in May 2021, and on July 6, having spent three years in custody, he was sentenced to 12 months supervision.

“GPS monitoring was sought by the Crown, but this was not imposed by the courts ... given all legal avenues to continue his detention had been exhausted, officials prepared for his release,” Ardern said.

Surveillance began immediately, Ardern said, and at times there were up to 30 police officers working on monitoring the man.

Ardern repeatedly said that government agencies had exhausted every legal avenue to kept the man out of the community.

She, at one point, took advice on whether it was possible to have him sectioned as a mental health patient. But the man had refused to take psychological assessments.

"When it was no longer possible to legally have this person detained, that is when the police came in with that constant monitoring.”

Insights into the attack

Police Commissioner Andrew Coster, also at the press conference, provided a revised account of how quickly police acted. He had said on Friday that it took 60 seconds for police to shoot the man, after hearing the commotion of the attack.

However, CCTV footage showed the first stabbing occurred 60 to 90 seconds prior to police realising an attack was underway.

Coster said the police surveillance officers were not able to be nearer to the man, in the supermarket, as there were fewer people present in the store due to Covid-19 lockdown restrictions.

“The risk of compromise is greatly increased.”

The terrorist had been highly paranoid that he was being monitored. Coster said the man had previously accused other people, not police officers, of surveilling him.

He had been under 24/7 surveillance for 53 days.

“I remain of the view that our police staff acted exactly the way we would have expected them to,” Coster said.

CCTV footage also showed the terrorist removing a kitchen knife from the supermarket shelves, before the attack. A similar knife was found next to his body after he was shot, indicating no other weapons were used.

“Nothing suggests to me anything other than the knife was taken from the store.”

The man spent ten minutes shopping at the store prior to the attack. Ardern said the man, earlier in the day, had done “bits and pieces” which suggested he intended to be around in the following weeks.

Coster said it may never be known whether he planned to carry out the attack at the supermarket, or it was “opportunistic”.

A seventh victim had been located overnight, Coster said. This victim had been injured by the knife but was not stabbed, and cared for the injury at their home.

After nearly a decade of warnings from officials the terror laws might not be sufficient, the Royal Commission into the March 15 terror attack in December recommended the Government provide the police and intelligence agencies “with the means to disrupt planning and preparation terrorist attacks”.

Such a provision does not exist in the Terror Suppression Act 2002, and attempts by police to prosecute possible terror planning – including the actions of the supermarket terrorist – had failed.

Ardern on Saturday mapped out the Government’s work to reform the law, which she said began in September 2018, and carried on throughout 2019.

The Government in April 2021 released details of its proposed law changes, which would broaden the scope of what has been considered terrorist activity, allowing law enforcement agencies to consider the planning or training for an attack as a terrorist activity, and provide warrantless search and entry powers to do so.

The bill had been in the select committee process in recent months, and a group of MPs had been hearing public submissions on how it should be written.

After receiving a written update on the man’s case in July, Ardern said she met with officials on August 9 to discuss what more could be done to mitigate the risk posed by the man.

Earlier this week, Coster suggested expediting the proposed law changes. Within 48 hours of this discussion, Ardern said, Justice Minister Kris Faafoi called the chair of the justice select committee to hurry it along.

“That was yesterday, the same day the attack happened,” Ardern said.

“The public have had their say, and now Parliament must act.”

But the bill has raised concerns for how it may damage civil liberties. The privacy commissioner, who supported the intent of the law change, does not support control orders and said the warrantless search powers pose a “grave” risk to the public’s privacy rights.

The Islamic Women’s Council has opposed the law changes. Last month, the council’s national co-ordinator Aliya Danzeisen told the select committee scrutinising the bill the organisation feared how the laws might be used on her community.

“We have lived the life of counter-terrorism laws for 20 years. We have been the focus of those laws for the last two decades,” she said.

“The proposed legislation as drafted is going to erode fundamental human rights.”

National Party leader Judith Collins has already offered to support the urgent passing of the counter-terror laws.

Collins said she sent a text message to Ardern on Friday evening, offering the National Party’s support if the Government wanted to pursue its changes to terrorism laws with urgency.

“It seems to us that is a very good thing to move faster on ... Obviously she can push things through anyway, but it's obviously more helpful to her if she has the Opposition agreeing with her,” she said.

Collins herself had made a decision to remove a review of the Terrorism Suppression Act from the Law Commission’s work programme, when she was justice minister in 2013. At the time, she said there did “not appear to be any substantial or urgent concerns arising from the operation of the Act”.

“You can't expect me to remember exactly every decision from eight years ago without any documentation. But it's also really important to consider that the threat situation was entirely different eight years ago to what it is now,” she said on Saturday.

Collins said she also wanted the Government to consider harsher, Australian-style immigration laws that would create powers to deport dual citizens and permanent residents for committing violent crimes.

It was not clear that such laws would have assisted the authorities in the case of the supermarket terrorist.

“Legislation by itself doesn't necessarily stop someone doing something that they want to do, if it did than nobody would ever be murdered,” Collins said.

“It helps to eventually make the country safer, but at the same time, it recognises that the vast majority of people who come to choose to New Zealand to be their home ... should not be unduly punished by other people's behaviours.”

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/cr...ays-new-terror-laws-will-be-passed-this-month

 

[James]

How exactly could the guy be under constant police surveillance & monitoring and still be able to commit this attack? Seems like either total procedural incompetence or too much legal red tape.

 

[ahsan17]

How exactly could the guy be under constant police surveillance & monitoring and still be able to commit this attack? Seems like either total procedural incompetence or too much legal red tape.

Not necessarily - this kind of stuff happens all the time. Police want to find out other connections this guy has, get more information on the guy, and the best way to do that is to continue to monitor but not arrest him. Because of that, events like these can happen, when the police have not got the intelligence that he's about to carry an attack like this, or when they have that information but fail to act on it.

 

[Gilly]

How exactly could the guy be under constant police surveillance & monitoring and still be able to commit this attack? Seems like either total procedural incompetence or too much legal red tape.

Can the police in England arrest and imprison a person because they think they will commit a crime.

 

[James]

Can the police in England arrest and imprison a person because they think they will commit a crime.

For planning a terror attack, yes.

"He had been under round-the-clock monitoring and heavy surveillance due to concerns about his ideology. He was known to multiple agencies, and was also on a terror watchlist.
Local media reports said the attacker was 32 years old and had recently been sentenced to one year of supervision for possessing IS propaganda.
Prosecutors had accused him of plotting a "lone wolf" terror attack using knives, but the judge ruled that planning a terror attack was not in itself an offence under existing laws, the reports said."

Sounds like a gap in the law to me.

 

[mastimasti]

How exactly could the guy be under constant police surveillance & monitoring and still be able to commit this attack? Seems like either total procedural incompetence or too much legal red tape.

Same way as in London the Streatham, so called terror attack, a knife attack in a city filled with knife attacks....the police claimed they had under cover agents following him yet allowed him to pull a knife and attack multiple people.

What does this tell you?

 

[MenInG]

The New Zealand government has named 32-year-old Ahamed Samsudeen as the extremist who was shot and killed by police after he attacked people in an Auckland supermarket with a knife resulting in seven people injured

 

[cricketjoshila]

Can the police in England arrest and imprison a person because they think they will commit a crime.

Its called preventive detention.

 

[sweep_shot]

Very unfortunate incident.

Well done, police. He should've been locked up.

 

[Robert]

Can the police in England arrest and imprison a person because they think they will commit a crime.

Yes, it’s called conspiracy (e.g. to commit murder).

Guess NZ is more liberal.

 

[DeadlyVenom]

Unfortunately I dont think anybody that is inspired by ISIS ideology while living in western countries can truly be rehabilitated.

Its better to lock them up and throw away the key. Even the ones that have been allegedly rehabilitated have committed enough of a crime by sympathising with ISIS , that warrants life detention.

There can sadly be no compromises with people that have a unique blend of religious fundamentalism and mental illness.

 

[Technics 1210]

The man was killed within 60 seconds of the attack starting? He must've been under surveillance for sure, funny how most of them usually are.

 

[MenInG]

WELLINGTON/COLOMBO, Sept 5 (Reuters) - New Zealand had tried for years to deport the knife-wielding militant who wounded seven people at a mall in Auckland last week, the government said after it released more details on the attacker following the lifting of a court suppression order.

Court documents made public on Sunday identified the attacker as Ahamed Aathil Mohamed Samsudeen, 32, an ethnic Tamil Muslim from Sri Lanka. He had arrived in New Zealand 10 years ago on a student visa seeking refugee status, which was granted in 2013.

Police in Sri Lanka were making background checks on Samsudeen and talking to his family and friends for more information, said spokesperson Nalin Thalduwa.

"As far as I am aware the New Zealand government has not made a formal request for Sri Lanka to commence an investigation so we are simply gathering information at the moment," Thalduwa said.


New Zealand police were following Samsudeen and shot him dead about a minute after he launched his attack on Friday after picking up a knife from a supermarket display. He had been convicted and imprisoned for about three years before being released in July.

Samsudeen's family issued a statement to the New Zealand media describing their shock at the "terrible event".

After his arrest Samsudeen "used to call me once every three months or so. We felt his change and everyone used to scold him, especially his two bothers," his mother, who lives in the Muslim-majority town of Kattankudy on Sri Lanka's eastern coast, told a local news channel.

Samsudeen was inspired by the Islamic State militant group and was being monitored constantly but he could not be kept in prison by law any longer, the New Zealand government has said.

He came to the attention of the police and security services in 2016 after he expressed sympathy on Facebook for militant attacks, violent war-related videos and comments advocating violent extremism.

The authorities say they later discovered his refugee status was fraudulently obtained, so the government sought to cancel his visa and issued deportation notices.

Police respond to the scene of an attack carried out by a man shot dead by police after he injured multiple people at a shopping mall in Auckland, New Zealand, September 3, 2021. Stuff Limited/Ricky Wilson via REUTERS
But Samsudeen appealed against the deportation, and since he was in prison, his appeal could not proceed until his criminal trial ended in May this year.

The attack has led to questions about a loophole in New Zealand's counterterrorism laws that allowed Samsudeen to remain free despite authorities being aware of the threat he posed.

The government has promised to tighten the law, in particular to criminalise planning a militant attack.

"We will continue to review our immigration laws alongside the terrorist suppression law, and I'm sure if there are ways we can improve it, we will," Deputy Prime Minister Grant Robertson told a news conference.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said in a statement on Saturday that unsuccessful attempts to deport Samsudeen were a "frustrating process" for the government.

Of the seven people wounded in the attack three are in critical condition. One has been released from hospital.

Samsudeen's family said in the statement they were heartbroken.

"We hope to find out with you all, what happened in Aathil's case and what we all could have done to prevent this," the family said in the statement, released by his brother Aroos.

The family said Samsudeen was suffering from mental health problems and his condition got worse over the past 10 years as he spent more time in prison and dealing with court cases.

"He wanted to share the sufferings and injustices. He saw himself as someone fighting those injustices," the family said.

 

[Robert]

Unfortunately I dont think anybody that is inspired by ISIS ideology while living in western countries can truly be rehabilitated.

Its better to lock them up and throw away the key. Even the ones that have been allegedly rehabilitated have committed enough of a crime by sympathising with ISIS , that warrants life detention.

There can sadly be no compromises with people that have a unique blend of religious fundamentalism and mental illness.

Then would have to be reprogrammed either by the state or by themselves. Ed Hussain and Maajid Nawaz spring to mind as rehabilitated extremists.

 

[DeadlyVenom]

Then would have to be reprogrammed either by the state or by themselves. Ed Hussain and Maajid Nawaz spring to mind as rehabilitated extremists.

They were part of Hizb ut tahir. A largely non violent organisation, that on paper at least doesn't want to change anything in the west but they want to establish a caliphate through peaceful measures in muslim countries.

The hizb in the UK are a mild nuisance at worst, i'd describe them as a bit like jehovahs witnesses in that whenever they speak people just nod politely and walk away.

Majid was jailed in Egypt because the hizb were linked to the muslim brotherhood and the Egyptian dictatorship clamped down on them strongly. Generally, they wanted to come to power through democratic means in Egypt but of course under the Mubarak dictatorship that was illegal.

Both Ed and Majid tend to overinflate their past extremism because they realised it was easy to cash in on it. If you still follow them you will realise that they are still extremists but just follow different ideologies now.

Ed seems hell bent on exposing an alleged Islamist coalition with the far left because he knows it sells in the US .

Anyway sorry for the rambling notes but my point is that those two individuals are not good examples to give. Their opinions have no value among the majority of muslims and any claims of extremism are wildly exaggerated.