Former top cop Mick Keelty calls out AFP chief Krissy Barrett for saying Bondi terror not linked to Islam

Former Australian Federal Police chief Mick Keelty has criticised Police Commissioner Krissy Barrett for suggesting Islam played no part in the Bondi Beach terror attack that killed 15 innocent people.

“This tortured distinction seems to infect the highest levels of government and is deeply troubling,” he wrote in an opinion piece for The Australian published on Monday.

“It reflects a conceptual error that goes to the heart of Australia’s counter-terrorism posture.

“The last time I checked — and I know I am now long in the tooth — ISIS is a Sunni Islamist extremist organisation that commits acts of terrorism in the name of a rigid and violent interpretation of Islam.”

Ms Barrett had told a media conference on December 16 — two days after the Bondi carnage — that religion played no part in Australia’s worst-ever terrorist attack.

“These are the alleged actions of those who have aligned themselves to a terrorist organisation — not a religion,” Ms Barrett said.

“There is no evidence to suggest other individuals are involved in this attack, however, we caution that this could change given it is early in our investigation.”

This was despite declaring “early indications point to a terrorist attack inspired by Islamic State, allegedly committed by a father and son”.

Sajid Akram, 50, who was shot dead by police and his 24-year-old son Naveed Akram, now facing 15 charges of murder and 40 of attempted murder, had draped an ISIS flag on the windscreen of their Hyundai Elantra before the killing spree.

Mr Keelty, who ran the AFP from 2001 to 2009, has also joined calls for a royal commission into the Bondi massacre, becoming the latest high-profile Australian to challenge Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s refusal to hold a wide-ranging inquiry.

“We need a royal commission to examine every scrap of evidence to determine how best to protect our community and ensure Australia does not drift into denial,” he said. “Bondi deserves more than procedural reassurance.”

Dennis Richardson, who previously ran Defence and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, has been tasked with examining ASIO and the AFP in the lead-up to the Bondi attack.

The families of 11 Jewish victims of the Bondi killings have called for a royal commission to also examine the role of rising anti-Semitism before the attacks.

“We, the families of those killed and injured in the Bondi Beach massacre, call on the Prime Minister to immediately establish a commonwealth royal commission into the rapid rise of anti-Semitism in Australia following Hamas’s attack on October 7, 2023, and the law-enforcement, intelligence, and policy failures that led to the Bondi Beach massacre,” they said.

Sheina Gutnick, whose father Reuven Morrison was killed in the Bondi terror attack after throwing an object at one of the gunmen, has joined the call for a royal commission.

“My father was murdered, leaving behind his wife, daughter, grandchildren,” she told Seven’s Sunrise program on Monday.

“So many families completely ripped apart — grandparents, parents, children, just taken from their families.

“This is something that impacts all of us here in Australia and we know that this is something that didn’t happen on its own.

“This is something that has been growing and festering here in Australia for two-and-a-half years now.”