Review of 2021 Auckland supermarket stabbing published

A review has been published of the 2021 Auckland supermarket stabbing, which identified failings in the management of the attacker before the attack.

The review was written by the oversight bodies of the police, corrections and intelligence agencies and found that there were several failings in the management of attacker, Ahamed Aathil Mohamed Samsudeen, in the year before the attack.

In 2017, Samsudeen allegedly expressed a desire to fight for ISIS in Syria and claimed that if he was prevented from travelling to Syria, he would carry out a knife attack in New Zealand. He was released from prison in July 2021, after serving time for two charges of possessing objectionable material relating to ISIS, and one charge of failing to assist a police officer exercising a search power.

On 3 September 2021, Samsudeen entered a supermarket in the LynnMall shopping centre in Auckland and stabbed eight people.

He was shot and killed by police officers who had been surveilling him.

The review identified shortcomings including missed opportunities to provide rehabilitation, insufficient coordination between agencies and a reluctance to share information about the risk posed by Samsudeen.

The review also found that police officers were justified to shoot Samsudeen.

Police Conduct Authority chairman Judge Colin Doherty said: "[Officers] believed Mr Samsudeen had advanced on them with the knife, posed an immediate threat of serious harm or death to them at the time they fired the shots, and posed a continuing serious threat to supermarket shoppers if they were unable to stop him.

“They were justified in shooting at Mr Samsudeen in self-defence under section 48 of the Crimes Act 1961.”

The New Zealand government has said it accepts all of the finding and is committed to adding to existing legislative and agency change with the aim of addressing signs of people's radicalisation to violent extremism sooner.

Image by Bernd Hildebrandt from Pixabay