JAKARTA - A suspected shooter in the Bondi Beach massacre in Sydney has been charged with 59 offenses including 15 murder charges. Meanwhile, hundreds of mourners gathered in Sydney to begin the funerals of the victims.
Two gunmen massacred 15 people on Sunday in an anti-Semitic mass shooting targeting Jews celebrating Hanukkah on Bondi Beach, and more than 20 others are still hospitalized.
All of the victims killed in the shooting who have been identified so far are Jewish.
Australia, rocked by the deadliest act of hate-fuelled carnage in modern times, is turning to the deep questions, which have come to the fore since the attack, about how it could have happened.
As the investigation progresses, Australia faces a reckoning on social and political issues of anti-Semitism, gun control and whether police protection for Jews at events such as Sunday's was enough for the threat they face.
Naveed Akram, the alleged gunman, 24, was charged on Wednesday, December 17 after waking up from a coma in a Sydney hospital, where he had been treated since police shot him and his father, the gunman in Bondi. His 50-year-old father, Sajid Akram, died at the scene.
"The charges include one count of murder for each victim and one count of terrorism," police said.
Akram was also charged with 40 counts of causing injury with intent to kill in relation to the injured victim and by placing explosives near a building with the intention to cause injury.
Police said Akram's family car, which was found at the scene, contained an improvised explosive device.
Akram's lawyer did not present a defense and did not ask for his client's release on bail during a video hearing from his hospital bed, the court said in a statement.
Akram was represented by Legal Aid NSW which has a policy of declining media comment on behalf of clients.
He is expected to remain under police supervision at the hospital until he is well enough to be transferred to a jail.
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