Photo: 2021 Getty Images / NZ Herald / Greg Bowker
An inquest into the death of Ahamed Samsudeen, the man shot dead by police after stabbing shoppers at an Auckland supermarket in 2021, begins on Tuesday.
LynnMall's Countdown supermarket was one of the few stores open on 3 September, 2021, with Auckland in lockdown due to Covid-19. That afternoon it would become the scene of a terror attack.
Samsudeen, who had been tailed by surveillance officers for the past seven weeks, took a knife from a supermarket shelf and stabbed six people. Another was injured trying to stop the attack.
Moments later Samsudeen was dead, shot 12 times by police.
In the years since, Samsudeen's history and the moments leading to his death have been scrutinised and analysed in multiple reports and investigations. But the latest, a coronial inquest set for the next five weeks, will cover previously unheard details of the shocking attack.
Legal arguments will begin on Tuesday, followed by evidence from eyewitnesses and experts over the following days and weeks.
The officers who killed Samsudeen will not give evidence, having already been investigated by the Independent Police Conduct Authority in 2022.
Coroner Marcus Elliott set the scope for the inquest last year, ruling it would cover Samsudeen's path to extremism, his management in the community, and what happened on the day he died.
Samsudeen had been monitored since 2015 and was arrested at Auckland Airport in 2017 for allegedly expressing his intent to join Islamic State. He would spend the next four years in prison.
His refugee status was cancelled in 2019, but he was still qualified as a protected person under the Immigration Act and authorities could not deport him or hold him in custody after he was released from prison in 2021.
In the months before the attack, Samsudeen was housed at a mosque as he tried to reintegrate into the community. The mosque was chosen for its positive relationship with the police, and the chair provided regular updates on Samsudeen's progress.
Police also continued to surveil Samsudeen without his knowledge.
Ahamed Samsudeen. Photo: Supplied
The police surveillance team, which followed Samsudeen to LynnMall, were not equipped to stop the attack - armed only with pepper spray to avoid breaking their cover.
That responsibility instead fell to a pair of Special Tactics Group officers supporting the surveillance team from afar, who rushed inside the supermarket when they saw shoppers fleeing.
Neither had time to equip themselves with Tasers and only had access to the Glock pistols holstered on their person, making lethal force their only option to stop the attack.
The inquest will explore the circumstances that lead Samsudeen to carry out the attack, and the impact it had on victims and witnesses.
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