Sajid Akram and his son, Naveed, stayed at the GV Hotel in Davao city for about a month before they went on a killing spree in Sydney’s Bondi Beach on Dec 14, 2025. - AFP
MANILA: Philippine police are currently tracking people who had any interaction with the two gunmen behind the Bondi Beach shooting during their month-long stay in the southern city of Davao.
Brigadier-General Leon Victor Rosete, chief of police in the Davao region, said police had begun “backtracking operations” to see where the shooters – Sajid Akram and his son, Naveed – went and who they met while they were in Davao.
The New York Times reported that the two appeared to have met local Muslim religious leaders while in the city.
Who specifically they met in the area and what was discussed are still being investigated, it said.
Brig-Gen Rosete said the police were reviewing footage from security cameras across Davao, as well as hotel records, travel data and other available intelligence information.
Sajid and Naveed Akram were confirmed to have stayed for almost a month at GV Hotel in Davao before the killing spree that left at least 15 people dead in Sydney.
The Akrams rarely went out of their hotel for the entire length of their stay, and that their longest stay outside the hotel was between one and two hours, said Jenelyn Sayson, a staff at GV Hotel.
Brig-Gen Rosete said police were also looking into what the suspects did during their stay, including identifying people they interacted with and “assessing possible links or support networks”.
Davao is the largest city on the island of Mindanao, the Philippines’ southern hub, which is home to a smattering of long-simmering Islamist insurgencies, some involving groups that claim loyalty to the Islamic State.
Initial information about the Akrams, provided by Australian counterterrorism experts, said that the two had been inspired by ISIS and were reported to have travelled to the Philippines for training.
On Dec 17, the National Security Council in the Philippines said it was unable to confirm whether the men had “received any form of training in the Philippines”.
The scars of extremism and militancy runs deep in Davao.
In 2016, a bombing at a popular night market killed at least 14 people. The authorities later blamed it on a small band of militants that had been trying to gain the attention of ISIS.
The Climate Conflict Action Asia (CCAA) has urged the government and the public to exercise restraint and caution against hasty conclusions about the suspects in the Bondi Beach killing who visited Mindanao and were immediately linked to terrorists.
“Premature conclusions and speculations that lack evidence risk fuelling religious and identity-based conflict and may obscure the deeper and more complex drivers of violence and radicalisation,” said CCAA, an independent group that gathers and analyses climate and conflict data as part of peace-building efforts in Mindanao. - Philippine Daily Inquirer/ANN
