The Coroners Court has heard details about the LynnMall terrorist's first interaction with New Zealand authorities.
By Finn Blackwell of RNZ
Ahamed Samsudeen stabbed six people in a West Auckland supermarket in 2021, before being shot dead by police.
Phases two and three of a coronial inquest into his death are underway in Auckland, looking at Samsudeen's path to violent extremism as well as the time leading up to the attack, and his attitudes towards women.
The court heard on Monday from Detective Superintendent Sean Hansen, who was part of the police's National Security Group at the time. He provided details of the first interaction Samsudeen had with police.
Authorities were alerted to Samsudeen after finding an account on social media in March 2016 under the name Aathill Al-Ceyloni Al-Moori.
The account had posted photographs and videos of graphic violence against Muslims on its public page, along with comments supporting violent extremism and ISIL (Islamic State, or ISIS) terrorist attacks overseas.
That prompted a visit from police to assess Samsudeen's level of risk, as well as give him a verbal warning.
"The first visit, it was assessed that we had some concerns about him and his responses didn't give us a sense that he was likely to stop having those views," Hansen said.
"He presented somewhat of a threat."
Next two phases of the Coronial Inquest into the death of Ahamed Samsudeen gets underway. (Source: 1News)
But a second visit in May that year, Hansen said, appeared more successful.
"He gave the staff that dealt with him at the time a sense that he had acknowledged that what he was doing was wrong, and that he was pulling away from that, and gave them some confidence that we didn't need to undertake any further follow-up with him," he said.
"It was a judgement call by the staff at the time."
'He was quite clearly radicalised'
That success was short-lived however, with police learning in October that Samsudeen had reopened his Facebook account and posted more material.
He was finally arrested in 2017 at Auckland Airport, with the Security Intelligence Service (SIS) believing he was travelling to Syria to join ISIL fighters there.
While in prison, Hansen said Samsudeen was obstructive towards staff.
"When we went to visit him in prison, he refused to come out of his cell," Hansen said. "He called obscenities, he really refused to engage with us at all."
As a result, police started pulling back from attempts to physically see Samsudeen, to ascertain whether there were other ways they could work with or around him.
Police were still trying to engage with Samsudeen when he was released from prison in 2018 and bailed to a mosque, Hansen said.
"We had some, probably call them transactional visits in terms of getting a passport. We assisted Corrections at times in terms of finding him accommodation.
"Really, what our efforts throughout this period – and they continued through – was to do as much as we could to put him in an environment where he would then cooperate and engage with us so we could start some disengagement work."
But Samsudeen was back in prison by August 2018, where he would stay until his release seven weeks before the attack.
Hansen said Samsudeen stopped engaging with police altogether shortly before his release.
Hansen was asked by the chairperson of the mosque, who cannot be named, why the community had been kept in the dark rather than consulted in confidence when Samsudeen first came onto their radar.
"I think to be fair, it was with the benefit of hindsight, that we can now say he was quite clearly radicalised," he said.
"Our view at the time was that he wasn't, hence the reason we stopped any proactive work with him, and the SIS was left to manage that lead as an intelligence case."
The mosque chairperson asked Hansen if there were people of interest who posed a similar risk as Samsudeen currently out in the community.
"What I can say is New Zealand is not free from violent extremism, we're not free from violent extremists. That's why we have the SIS, and we have other agencies, is to manage that particular risk and threat that faces our communities."
He was asked by the lawyer representing police, Alysha McClintock, if the mosque Samsudeen stayed at in the time before the attack in 2021 had been told about his level of risk.
"As I understand from the staff, the degree of risk that he posed was conveyed, and why he had been in prison had been conveyed."
Hansen said the best outcome for the country was a preventive one, but did not know if prevention should sit with any one agency.
"We are firmly of the view the best long-term outcome for New Zealand in terms of violent extremism and terrorism is a preventive one.
"I've seen the carnage in Australia and the UK in particular with the impact of imprisoning people for long periods of time – it presents them with some very difficult issues when they come out of prison."
The inquest continues.
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