“Your rehabilitation is accordingly key.” “I am of the view that the risk of you reoffending in a similar way to the charges upon which you were convicted remains high,” the judge concluded. The judge also banned Samsudeen from owning any devices that could access the internet, unless approved in writing by a probation officer, and ordered that he provide access to any social media accounts he held. She said an aggravating factor was that he was on bail for earlier, similar offenses and had tried to delete his internet browser history.įitzgerald noted the extreme concerns of police, saying she didn't know if they were right, but “I sincerely hope they are not.” The judge said she rejected arguments Samsudeen had simply stumbled on the videos and was trying to improve his Arabic. It described him as harboring extreme attitudes, living an isolated lifestyle, and having a sense of entitlement.īut the judge decided to release him, sentencing him to a year's supervision at an Auckland mosque, where a leader had confirmed his willingness to help and support Samsudeen on his release. She said the videos described obtaining martyrdom on the battlefield by being killed for God's cause.Ī court report warned Samsudeen had the motivation and means to commit violent acts in the community and posed a high risk. High Court Judge Sally Fitzgerald described the contents as religious hymns sung in Arabic. However, the videos didn't show violent murders like some Islamic State videos and weren't classified as the worst kind of illicit material. On new charges in May, a jury found Samsudeen guilty on two counts of possessing objectionable videos, both of which showed Islamic State group imagery, including the group's flag and a man in a black balaclava holding a semi-automatic weapon. He spent the next three years in jail after pleading guilty to various crimes and for breaching bail. In 2018, he bought another knife, and police found two Islamic State videos. Police searches found he had a hunting knife and some banned propaganda material, and he was later released on bail.
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He was headed for Syria, authorities say, presumably to join the Islamic State insurgency. In 2017, they arrested him at Auckland Airport.
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Police twice confronted him but he kept on posting. Samsudeen was first noticed by police in 2016 when he started posting support for terror attacks and violent extremism on Facebook. “But that is not sufficient for us to take any enforcement action.” “We might have an understanding of intent, and ideology, and we might have high levels of concern,” Coster said. Police Commissioner Andrew Coster said the law they were working under required a suspect to make the first move. She vowed law changes by the end of the month. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said lawmakers were close to filling some of those legislative holes when the attack occurred. The attack has highlighted deficiencies in New Zealand's anti-terror laws, which experts say are too focused on punishing actions and inadequate for dealing with plots before they are carried out. A bystander's video records the sound of 10 shots being fired in rapid succession. Undercover officers monitoring Samsudeen from just outside the supermarket sprang into action when they saw shoppers running and heard shouting, police said, and shot him dead within a couple of minutes of him beginning his attack. The youngest victim was a 29-year-old woman, the oldest a 77-year-old man.Ĭourt documents named the attacker as 32-year-old Ahamed Aathil Mohamed Samsudeen, a Tamil Muslim from Sri Lanka who arrived in New Zealand 10 years ago on a student visa seeking refugee status, which he was granted in 2013. The seventh person was recovering at home.
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On Saturday, three of the victims remained hospitalized in critical condition and three more were in stable or moderate conditions. Two more shoppers were injured in the melee. Their fears were borne out Friday when the man walked into an Auckland supermarket, grabbed a kitchen knife from a store shelf and stabbed five people, critically injuring three. So for 53 days from July, police tracked the man's every move, an operation that involved some 30 officers working around the clock. WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) - New Zealand authorities imprisoned a man inspired by the Islamic State group for three years after catching him with a hunting knife and extremist videos - but at a certain point, despite grave fears he would attack others, they say they could do nothing more to keep him behind bars.