Suspected gunman in Bondi Beach shooting charged with 15 counts of murder : NPR

SYDNEY — A suspected gunman in Sydney’s Bondi Beach massacre was charged with 59 offenses including 15 charges of murder on Wednesday, as hundreds of mourners gathered in Sydney to begin funerals for the victims.

Two shooters slaughtered 15 people on Sunday in an antisemitic mass shooting targeting Jews celebrating Hanukkah at Bondi Beach, and more than 20 other people are still being treated in hospitals. All of those killed by the gunmen who have been identified so far were Jewish.

Police said that Naveed Akram, the 24-year-old suspected shooter, was charged on Wednesday after waking from a coma in a Sydney hospital, where he has been since police shot him and his gunman father at Bondi. His 50-year-old father Sajid Akram died at the scene.

The charges include one count of murder for each fatality and one count of committing a terrorist act.

Akram was also charged with 40 counts of causing harm with intent to murder in relation to the wounded and with placing an explosive near a building with intent to cause harm.

Police said the Akrams’ car, which was found at the crime scene, contained improvised explosive devices.

Funerals began as a country reeling from its deadliest hate-fueled massacre of modern times turned to searching questions, growing in volume since the attack, about how it was able to happen. As investigations unfold, Australia faces a social and political reckoning about antisemitism, gun control, and whether police protections for Jews at events such as Sunday’s were sufficient for the threats they faced.

First, however, was a day of anguish for families from Sydney’s close-knit Jewish community who gathered, one after another, to begin to bury their dead. The victims of the attack ranged in age from a 10-year-old girl to an 87-year-old Holocaust survivor.