Ahamed Aathill Mohamed Samsudeen, the refugee LynnMall terrorist, visited Sri Lanka in 2016 where he was radicalised according to a newshub report which differs from the Radio NZ report by three words “in Sri Lanka”. This shows how the media hide the truth. This Islamic terrorist had claimed refugee status because he was too afraid to go back home, and then goes back home!
It appears that he must have come to police attention on his re-entry into the country, however our government isn’t telling us this.
The mother of the LynnMall attacker says he was brainwashed by neighbours from the Middle East.
Ahamed Aathill Mohamed Samsudeen, a 32-year-old refugee originally from Sri Lanka, was shot dead by undercover police after stabbing six people inside Countdown in LynnMall on Friday.
His mother, Ismail Fareeda, has told a TV channel in Sri Lanka that neighbours from Syria and Iraq radicalised Aathil Samsudeen when he was injured in a fall in Sri Lanka in 2016.
She said her son then started posting radical views on social media.
Fareeda said there was a change in her son after he left Sri Lanka and settled in New Zealand in 2011.
She said her two other sons had reprimanded the 32-year-old over his radical views.
In a statement released via a lawyer and credited to Samsudeen’s brother, Aroos, his whanau said they were heartbroken by the horrible act and they wanted to send love and support to those who were hurt.
The Sri Lankan government is promising to work with New Zealand authorities over Friday’s stabbings at the LynnMall Countdown supermarket, AFP reported.
It had been investigating whether Samsudeen was linked to the bombings in Colombo on Easter Sunday 2019, which killed 279 people.
There were 279 people killed in the attacks on three churches and three hotels.
The bombings were blamed on a group that pledged allegiance to the then Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
A spokesperson for Sri Lanka’s foreign ministry said the government there condemns the senseless violence of the west Auckland attack and will cooperate with the New Zealand authorities in any way necessary.
Mother of LynnMall terrorist claims neighbours ‘brainwashed’ him as he recovered from injury
An edited statement from the family appeared on RNZ:
Ahamed Aathill Mohamed Samsudeen, a 32-year-old refugee originally from Sri Lanka, was shot dead by undercover police after stabbing six people inside Countdown in LynnMall on Friday.
A seventh person was also injured in the attack.
In a statement released via a lawyer and credited to Samsudeen’s brother, Aroos, the whanau said they wanted to send love and support to those who were hurt.
“We are so shaken by what has happened and we do not know what to do. We hope these words will help bring some peace to your beautiful country. We are ready to help you all in the healing process no matter what it is needed from us.
“We hope to find out with you all, what happened in Aathil’s case and what we all could have done to prevent this. We are heartbroken by this terrible event.
“My father still doesn’t know my brother is dead because he has been missing him so much and is very ill these days.”
The statement said Samsudeen, who arrived in New Zealand in 2011 on a student visa, suffered from “political torture” and his mental health steadily declined over the years.
Samsudeen spent a lot of time on social media, it said.
“We saw his mental health got worse and worse during the last 10 years or so. He spent a lot of his time in prison and was always struggling with some court cases. When we heard that he was in prison in New Zealand, we thought it would do him some good but didn’t realise he would spend so much time there. He also had many problems in prison.”
Members of the wider family visited New Zealand in 2013.
“We love your country and your people and we know from what we have seen since the Christchurch attack that you are good people. We want to stand with you. We have lost Aathil. We don’t know what to do while our father is still very ill and doesn’t know about this situation.
“Aathil was the youngest and very close to my father. He grew up with my parents in the family home while the rest of us grew up mainly in hostels. Aathil was the baby of the family. My mother is so upset.”
Samsudeen’s brother said there were difficulties.
“Aathil always contradicted what he was told. He would hang up the phone on us when we told him to forget about all of the issues he was obsessed with. Then he would call us back again himself when he realised he was wrong. Aathil was wrong again [on Friday]. Of course we feel very sad that he could not be saved. The prisons and the situation was hard on him and he did not have any support. He told us he was assaulted there.”
The statement said the family hope they remain safe now that the identity of the attacker has been made public.
Ultimately, it said the family were thinking of the innocent people who were hurt.
“We all have to try to accept this. I pray that God will help us all to heal from this very sad day. We are thinking of you all. We are thinking of our parents. We are thinking of the boy who left us and the innocent people. Our lives have changed forever. We realise that it will take us some time to come to terms with this. We are thinking of the injured, both mentally and physically.”
