The quiet bricklayer, his father and a leave of absence: the duo accused of killing 15 people in Bondi

It was late June in 2019, and a 17-year-old Naveed Akram was standing outside Bankstown train station in Sydney’s west, earnestly extolling the virtues of prayer.

He was working with young men performing street dawah, a form of outreach in which the ultimate goal is to convert passersby to Islam.

Over the next few months, Akram turned 18, finished a vocational training course and started an apprenticeship as a bricklayer – his first and only proper job. And, according to police, he came under investigation by the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (Asio).

This appears to be the only time either Akram or his father, Sajid, came to the attention of authorities before allegedly carrying out the worst terrorist attack in Australian history. On Wednesday, police charged the younger man with 59 offences, including 15 counts of murder, and one count of committing a terrorist act. They allege the evidence points to the attack being “inspired” by Islamic State.

Days earlier, Asio and police confirmed they had some knowledge of Akram, with the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, saying the investigation ran for six months from October 2019.

“[Akram] was examined on the basis of being associated with others,” Albanese said this week.

“The assessment was made that there was no indication of any ongoing threat or threat of him engaging in violence.”

The strength of this assessment will now likely be drawn into sharper focus by police investigators. So too if the Asio investigation was considered when Sajid was granted a firearms licence in 2023 – and then acquired six firearms over the next two years – especially given he lived with his son throughout this period.

Investigators will likely be considering if these strands, combined with the pair’s travel to the Philippines weeks before the alleged attack, should have been enough to sound an alarm bell.

Philippines trip examined

Akram, 24, has been described as an incredibly hard worker, who seemingly never took leave. But, a couple of months ago, he told his boss he had broken his wrist while boxing and wouldn’t be able to work again until 2026.

In the meantime, he asked for his annual leave and other entitlements to be paid out.

It’s not known what that money was used for.

But authorities in Manila say that on 1 November, Akram and his father travelled to the Philippines for four weeks, returning little more than a fortnight before the attack. Their destination upon arrival in the Philippines was listed as Davao, a city not far from a terrorist hotspot in the country’s south.

What exactly they did there is still under investigation.

There were apparently no obvious signs for his colleagues to think he was planning a trip to south-east Asia, let alone anything else.

An account he set up on the social media platform X last August contains only two posts: one a video of a “beautiful brick wall” he seemingly built, another of an idyllic beach. Only on the “About” section of his profile does it offer a clue: the account is “based” in the Philippines, with the platform flagging the location “can be impacted by recent travel”.

“No one was close to him,” says a former colleague, who did not wish to be named.

“You spend a lot of time together, obviously bricklaying – [which is a] pretty mind-numbing job, so you do a lot of talking, but he was just a weird operator.”

He was noted to be close to his father. Both his colleague and boss understood that his parents had separated, and that Akram, the oldest of three children, had grown closer to his father, and his religion, as a result of the separation.

It does appear, however, that the family remained under the same roof, at a tidy house in Bonnyrigg.

Peace broken on a quiet suburban street

About three hours after the attack, late on Sunday night, residents on a normally quiet street were surprised to find it lit up by red and blue flashing lights. A crowd of people then also gathered in the western Sydney neighbourhood. Akram’s address had been leaked online.

One resident says he saw police enter the home across the road from him shortly after midnight, after officers had called, multiple times, for the people inside to come out with their hands up.

Akram’s mother and two others were eventually escorted out of their home by officers. They are not accused of any wrongdoing or having any involvement in Sunday’s attack.

Neighbours who spoke to Guardian Australia say that they don’t know the Akrams. They described them as a family that kept to themselves.

According to land records, Sajid and his wife bought the Bonnyrigg house in 2016. But Sajid transferred his share of the property to his wife in February 2024.

Not far away from the property is a base for the Zastava Hunting Association, which describes itself online as promoting safe, responsible and ethical hunting.

When Akram’s address was leaked online, so too was the faint outline of a membership card for the hunting club purportedly held in his wallet.

A person familiar with Zastava says the club’s management was upset about being linked to the Akrams, and suggested that anyone can gain membership merely by signing up on its website. No one from Zastava’s leadership responded to Guardian Australia’s requests for comment.

Search for answers

Others on the periphery of the Akrams’ lives have been drawn into the maelstrom.

A Facebook photo of the younger man with Sheikh Adam Ismail – the head of Sydney’s Al-Murad Institute which provides Qur’an recitation and Arabic classes – circulated widely online this week.

“As I’ve done with 1000s of students over the years, I’ve taught him Qur’an recitation and Arabic only for a combined period of one year [in 2019],” Ismail said.

“What I find deeply ironic is that the very Qu’ran he was learning to recite clearly states that taking one innocent life is like killing all of humanity.”

Sajid, 50, arrived in Australia from India on a student visa in 1998, transferred in 2001 to a partner visa – the year Naveed was born – and has remained a permanent resident.

Reporters have swarmed on the home of members of his family in India, looking for answers. He was originally from the southern city of Hyderabad, and his family did not seem aware of any alleged “radical mindset”, police there say.

According to Reuters reports, Sajid had received a degree in commerce studying in the city, and returned to India just six times in the past 27 years. But police said he did not return when his father died.

Another keen focus of investigators will be how Sajid and his son spent the 16 days after they returned from the Philippines.

Police say some of this time was spent at a short-term rental property in Campsie, where a listing shows cheap rooms on offer. They left the property on Sunday.

The Akrams then allegedly made the 20km drive to Bondi beach, where a Hanukah celebration was taking place.

In their car, police allege, were four of Sajid’s six registered guns, two homemade Islamic State flags and improvised explosive devices.