A religious leader at Perth’s biggest mosque has spoken out as more reports surface about the 16-year-old boy who was shot by police on Saturday after becoming “radicalised” and stabbing a man in the carpark of a Bunnings.
Imam Syed Wadood Janud of Ahmadiyya Muslim Community (AMC) denounced the boy’s actions and raised concerns from the Muslim community about social media posts that had been circulating in the community.
The 16-year-old unleashed an attack at the Willetton Bunnings carpark about 10.15pm on Saturday, with police shooting the boy after they were unable to stop him with police Tasers.
He had stabbed one man who remains at Royal Perth Hospital in a stable condition.
Before the attack, the teenager sent a final message to people saying he was going on “the path of jihad”, with members of Perth’s concerned Islamic community alerting police to the messages.
“Brothers please forgive me for any time I have wronged you, I am going on the path of jihad tonight for the sake of Allah,” the boy, who had reportedly converted to Islam, wrote.
“I am a soldier of the mujahideen of al-Qaeda and take responsibility for the actions that will … take place tonight.”
He also warned his contacts to “clear” incriminating evidence from devices like laptops and phones.
“If you have any illegal or jihadi things online or in real life please make sure to hide them well and clear your technology such as laptops and phones including search history … as the police will likely look into my contacts,” he wrote.
The teen had reportedly attempted to indoctrinate other students at his high school, and had spent more than two years in a “deradicalisation” program after he was radicalised online.
The Imam said “in the harshest of terms possible” he condemned this extremely unfortunate incident that was unfortunately committed in the name of Islam, which virtually meant “peace.”
He also revealed the boy involved in the incident had never been to a mosque in Perth.
“This person was quite young he was only 16 years old, he had been part of the WA Police deradicalisation program in the last two years,” he said.
“Clearly whatever he knew about Islam was something he had learned online and we all know the dangers of social media that this information available online can be extremely misleading to say the least.”
He said jihad which was a sacred term that translated to strive and struggle and that in the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community there had never been a “single case of extremism” or radicalisation.”
“It is because the last 130 years, we have been teaching, preaching and practising that jihad in this day and age is the jihad of the pen, which is knowledge, and the jihad of self affirmation,” he said.
“You see this in our mosques all around the world, you see this in our members all around the world and you see this in our youth all around the world.
“I believe this message is extremely important for the public to understand.”
Since the incident on Saturday, Iman Janud said social media posts had been circulating misinformation about jihad and others that were Islamophobic and invited the community to visit their mosques and address any concerns they had.
He also said a petition that was signed by parents at the boy’s school which was seeking to ban prayer rooms was counter-productive, and asked that people tried to understand how this happened.
“Our general concerns are the Islamophobic rhetoric that we are seeing on social media which is extremely damaging,” he said.
“We ask them not to seek clarification online there are all sorts of rhetoric online.
“It is extremely concerning because members of the mosque to go schools and universities and in the past there have been Islamophobic incidents which have taken place after things.”
Premier Roger Cook said the boy was one of nine people in Western Australia that were part of Countering Violence Extremism Program, which has been running since 2015.
The teenager had been in the program for the past two with the premier stating that they “were well aware of the thoughts that he was harbouring.”
“He was an active participant in that program since he was 14 years old,” he said.
“It is absolutely appropriate that person remained in the Countering Violence Extremism Program but not necessarily under the control of supervision of police.
“The Education Department has these young people in their care on school grounds under the education program.
“They are responsible for continuing to make sure those people are looked after in that context.”