The story of the Auckland terrorist
Friday's attack at a supermarket followed years of attempts by the government to deport a refugee who had become radicalised
Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin for Monday, September 6, by Justin Giovannetti. Presented in partnership with Z Energy.
In today’s edition: Cabinet will decide today whether most of New Zealand should move to level two, what we know about the Auckland terrorist and a shift on the data around booster shots.
A police officer stands guard at Countdown LynnMall. (Fiona Goodall/Getty Images)
Officials tried for years to deport the terrorist responsible for Friday’s attack. The man responsible for stabbing shoppers at a west Auckland supermarket had been on the government’s watchlist for years, according to RNZ. After a judge lifted a suppression order over the weekend, the full story of Ahamed Aathil Mohamed Samsudeen can be told.
But first, a story of a New Zealander who helped his neighbours. Amait Nand was in the freezer section when he heard screaming. He ran over to find a man with a knife. With people on the floor bleeding, Nand ran up to the man armed only with a sign pole and tried to stop him. Stuff looked at people in New Lynn who helped on a horrible Friday.
Seven people were injured in the attack and three remain in hospital while three more are in the ICU, in critical but stable condition. One person has been released from hospital. As the prime minister said Friday: “This was an attack by an individual, not a culture, not a religion or an ethnicity, but an individual who was gripped by an ideology that is not supported by anyone here”.
The man was fighting to keep his refugee status. Samsudeen, a 32-year-old born in Sri Lanka, had been in New Zealand since 2011 when he arrived on a student visa. He made a claim for refugee status soon after, but was declined. He appealed, and was granted the status the following year. The prime minister said on Friday that his claim was based on a fraudulent document.
A turn towards radicalisation. The NZ Herald obtained the man’s refugee application and found that he was angry, worried about his parents, alone and unsupported, without confidence or maturity: “In other words, almost the perfect candidate to be radicalised in his living room.” He came to the attention of police in 2016 after posting comments supporting the Islamic State on Facebook.
His arrest. The man was under close surveillance when he was arrested in 2017 at Auckland airport, presumed to be on his way to Syria. Police found a large hunting knife and Islamic State propaganda in his Auckland apartment. He spent more than a year in jail. Without enough evidence, he was released under supervision and told his refugee status was going to be revoked.
The legal gap. The man couldn’t be charged as a terrorist because of a gap in New Zealand’s laws. Authorities knew he was planning a “lone wolf” knife attack, the NZ Herald reported as much earlier this year, but planning an act of terror is not a crime in New Zealand. Instead, he spent much of the past three years being prosecuted on different charges. Ardern said Friday it was “disappointing” that he couldn’t be held in jail while his deportation went through the appeals process.
Radicalised in New Zealand. The terrorist’s mother told a TV channel in Sri Lanka that her son had been “brainwashed” by neighbours from Syria and Iraq, according to RNZ. The government rejected her account yesterday according to The Spinoff’s live updates, with the deputy prime minister saying there was no proof of her claim. All the same, the man’s family has reprimanded his radical views and said they were heartbroken by his actions The Guardian has raised the question of whether the New Zealand government should have focused more on deradicalisation work, rather than following the man with police officers and trying to kick him out of the country.
The government will toughen anti-terror laws. Officials in the justice ministry were working over the weekend on an overhaul of the country’s terrorism law. The prime minister has now said the bill will pass by the end of the month, according to Stuff. The National party has offered to help to pass the bill first revealed in April, after nearly a decade of warnings that the country’s law was too weak, namely by not making it a crime to plan and prepare for a terrorist attack. Andrew Geddis has written in The Spinoff that a tougher law probably wouldn’t have changed much in this case and parliament shouldn’t rush through legislation.
The Spinoff is doing our utmost to keep you updated on Covid-19 related news through this outbreak. Every dollar our members contribute directly funds our editorial team and is devoted to ensuring we do more. Click here to learn how you can support the team today.
The Covid numbers: 20 new community cases were reported yesterday, 30% of the previous day’s cases were active in the community while infectious. All the cases were in Auckland. The overall trend of daily cases is falling rapidly, but officials warn testing levels are now too low. 801 cases have now been detected in the delta outbreak. 76,812 people were vaccinated yesterday.
Cabinet is reviewing the country's alert levels outside Auckland today and an announcement on any changes will be made at 4pm. The director-general of health said a move to level two outside Auckland was “feasible”, according to One News.
Booster shots could be on hold overseas. Officials in the US and UK are now indicating that programmes for a third jab could be delayed or scaled back as new research comes in. Both countries had intended to start offering booster shots this month. As the The New York Times reports, the White House has been told that boosters might only be necessary in a very few cases and not for months. The head of the UK’s programme told The Guardian that it’s probably best to wait to see how the pandemic evolves before offering a third jab.
Comparing plans to tackle the housing crisis. House prices around the world have spiked during Covid-19. Business Insider looks at how the US, Canada and New Zealand are trying to return to housing affordability. In short: The Americans want to massively increase supply, Canada is targeting foreign speculators and New Zealand is placing a heavy burden on the reserve bank. The story gives an interesting sense of the scale of response from each country.
The quiet Greens. While National and Act have thrown themselves into opposition, offering up a long list of ways to fix what they think is broken, the Greens have all but vanished. Andrea Vance has written for Stuff about what's happened. The party brought new activists into parliament just over a year ago who aren't bound to supporting Labour. While they’ve poked around on rent freezes and Judith Collins, the party has shrunk into the background by choice. That could change. Look to Te Pāti Māori’s outspoken co-leaders for what could have been.
A paid message from our partner Te Taura Whiri, the Māori Language Commission: Join us in celebrating te reo Māori at 12pm on Tuesday, September 14. Sign yourself and your workplace, whānau and flatmates up to our Māori Language Moment. Kia kaha te reo Māori, kia kaha Aotearoa!
The show before Jacinda and Ashley. Like many New Zealanders I've flipped on the TV a few minutes before 1pm over past weeks to watch the daily Covid-19 press conference. Watching from home, on a few occasions, instead of being in the Beehive has been a novelty. It’s a bewildering experience. I've never watched an episode of Coronation Street, let alone Emmerdale, and I have no idea what's going on. The show is moody, dramatic and ends before I learn much of anything. Tara Ward has written an explainer for The Spinoff about the show, which has seen its ratings grow 140% in lockdown as it became the prime minister's curtain raiser.
Got some feedback about The Bulletin, or anything in the news?
Get in touch with me at thebulletin@thespinoff.co.nz
Queensland’s strategy has been swift lockdowns. (Patrick Hamilton/AFP via Getty Images)
Right now on The Spinoff: Mirjam Guesgen on the truth about ivermectin, which isn’t a Covid wonder drug, but a horse wormer. Jennifer Summers looks at what we can learn about beating delta from other jurisdictions. Anthony O’Brien writes that it would be a bad idea to use the mental health act to detain would-be terrorists. David Hill has thoughts on what’s the right relationship between a patient and a doctor. Dylan Cleaver unveils his new project, The Bounce, and what it says about the poor state of sports journalism in New Zealand.
For a feature today, going down the conspiracy rabbit hole. In recent weeks the country’s vaccination programme has gained steam, with nearly half of New Zealanders receiving a jab. At about the same time, most of the country went into lockdown. It’s led to an explosion in the number of people on conspiracy groups online according to Stuff.
After three weeks looking at misinformation daily, Charlie Mitchell not only writes about some of the main arguments of the conspiracy movement, among them that vaccines are causing mass deaths (they aren’t), but what sustains the conspiracies. Part of it is a clear frustration that the messages aren’t breaking through to the public:
Day after day, there are repeated calls to action, demands to fight back, to wake people up, but no effective means of doing so. There is always an upcoming protest action or court case that could change everything, but none has been successful. There have been three such protests in the last few weeks, and all were duds.
“This is such a pivotal point in human history,” one person vented on Facebook recently. “[W]e're screaming but no-one is listening! The utter frustration is unbearable.”
New Zealand’s Erin Routliffe through to third round of doubles at US Open. She’s gotten there with her Canadian partner Leylah Fernandez, who stunned the competition in singles when she eliminated defending champion Naomi Osaka. According to Stuff, Routliffe and Fernandez have so far dominated at the open, which is unexpected when neither are in the top 100 players in the world.
That's it for The Bulletin. If you want to support the work we do at The Spinoff, please check out our membership programme.