‘Lucky they didn’t kill me’: Jimmy let two men shoot on his property. Then he found out who they were

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The men at Jimmy’s farm seemed unremarkable. They were friendly, polite and greeted their host warmly. They said they were friends from Sydney interested in hunting. Like others who had responded to Jimmy’s online advertisement, they wanted to use his rural acreage to shoot feral animals and were willing to pay for the privilege.

Four or five times over several months last year, the pair returned to the isolated farm, about an hour from Goulburn, to hunt. Each visit followed the same pattern: the pair parked their silver hatchback, unloaded their weapons and set off in the paddock together to find the ideal makeshift shooting range.

But rather than foxes and deer in their sights, the younger man, who described himself as Italian, and his older friend fired round after round at paper targets strung up on the 35-hectare property’s fence line. The target-shooting, they said, was just “for fun”.

Jimmy is still coming to terms with what occurred at his second home.

In late October, after several day trips to the property, the pair told Jimmy they planned to spend five days at the farm to hunt deer. Instead, they spent only a few hours there on a Saturday morning, returned the key Jimmy had left them to unlock the gate, and left. It was the last time Jimmy, whose surname this masthead has withheld to protect his privacy, saw them in the flesh.

In the days before Christmas, a police officer showed Jimmy photos of the pair. Jimmy recognised them, he said. They were friends who had shot at his farm, but he didn’t know their names. They weren’t friends, the officer explained, but a father and son. Their names were Sajid and Naveed Akram.

‘Lucky they didn’t kill me’

By the time Jimmy heard about the Bondi Beach massacre, authorities had tracked the Akrams to his farm in NSW’s Southern Tablelands. They turned the property “upside down” during a multi-day search as they worked to form a picture of the pair’s movements in the months before the Islamic State-inspired terrorist attack on December 14.

Empty shotgun shells litter the border of Jimmy’s property, where he allows shooters to hunt.

Jimmy bought the 35-hectare property more than a decade ago.

By then, days had passed since Sajid Akram, 50, had been killed in a shootout with police at the Chanukah by the Sea event, and Naveed Akram, 24, had been charged with the murder of 15 festival-goers and the attempted murder of 40 others.

Jimmy didn’t know the Akrams had used his farm to conduct what police say was tactical training, or that they had filmed one another allegedly preparing for the attack. He didn’t know the now-infamous images of the Akrams firing shotguns had been captured metres from the caravan he stays in on weekends until shown the exact location the Akrams had been shooting from during this masthead’s visit to his property this week.

Using stills taken from those videos, satellite images and information provided by several sources on the condition of anonymity, this masthead tracked the father and son to Jimmy’s property, revealing exclusively a major part of the pair’s alleged planning in the months before the Bondi attack.

The videos of the Akrams allegedly found on the pair’s phones seized by police show them “firing shotguns and moving in a tactical manner” during training they allegedly did on the property, according to a police facts sheet outlining the case against Naveed Akram released by the NSW Local Court last month.

Weeks after learning of the Akrams’ attack, Jimmy is still coming to terms with what occurred at his second home. “I can’t believe these people did these things, but they did,” he said. “Lucky they didn’t kill me.”

Pieces of a puzzle

Jimmy’s interactions with the Akrams shed new light on their movements in the months before the Bondi Beach massacre; he is the first person to publicly provide an eyewitness account of the father and son shooting the same firearms believed to have been used in the December 14 attack in the months before the mass killing.

When the Akrams visited Jimmy’s property, which he advertises as a weekend getaway suited for camping, hunting and motorbike riding, they always came alone and never stayed overnight. Often, visitors paid Jimmy in beer or meat for use of his farm. Once, the Akrams left $50 in Jimmy’s car as thanks for letting them shoot on the property.

Hour after hour, the father and son fired their rifles and shotguns at targets; sometimes from close range, other times from further back. When they were done, they would collect their spent shells and cartridges and drive along the gravel roads and motorways back to Sydney.

Jimmy travels to the isolated farm on weekends to tend to his animals.

Only once, during their visit to the farm in late October, did Jimmy have to pull the Akrams into line, fearing the volume of shots they were firing in quick succession would spur a neighbour to call police. “[It was] bang bang bang all the time,” he said.

The Akrams became familiar faces at the farm, visiting on weekends when Jimmy travelled to the property from his Sydney home to tend to his chickens, dogs, sheep and goats.

Jimmy, a seasoned hunter himself, wondered why the pair left the farm empty-handed each weekend without so much as the scalp of a single fox to show for their hours of shooting. Still, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. In hindsight, he knows the opposite is true. “I know it’s crook now,” he said. Jimmy has given a statement to police and is not accused of any wrongdoing.

Piles of spent shotgun shells litter the border of Jimmy’s farm, left behind by shooters who have visited over the years. Metres away, in one of the spots the Akrams shot at targets on a fence line near the entrance to Jimmy’s block, emptied rifle cartridges lie in the dry grass. Jimmy’s property is one of dozens across regional NSW advertised online for hire as hunting destinations. Across the country, in much less formal arrangements, farmers allow recreational shooters and hunters access to their farms.

For all the hours the Akrams spent at his property, Jimmy learnt little about them. The pair offered scant detail of their life in Sydney or their interests. They did not speak of their religious beliefs, nor did they spout antisemitism.

Jimmy, who was born on the Greek island Zakynthos, was happy to keep to himself. He has lived a quiet life since migrating to Australia in 1975 after serving in Greece’s military during the Turkish invasion of Cyprus the year before, retreating to the bush and enjoying the company of the same kind of farm animals he was raised with.

Jimmy pictured during his service in the Greek military, and (right) after arriving in Australia in 1975.

For the most part, he didn’t mind what the Akrams did on the property as long as they stuck to their targets and pests. “Don’t shoot my animals,” he told them.

After the father and son’s last trip to the farm in October, Jimmy did not hear from them again.

He now knows that within days of that visit, Sajid and Naveed Akram travelled to the southern Philippine island of Mindanao, a region of the country linked to Islamic extremism.

On a Sunday afternoon, weeks after their return at the end of November, the Akrams, allegedly armed with an arsenal of high-powered firearms, improvised explosive devices and two homemade Islamic State flags, left the Campsie home where they had rented a room and drove their silver Hyundai hatchback to Bondi Beach.

They parked, unloaded their weapons and began firing rifles and shotguns indiscriminately at Jewish families with the precision of men who had spent months preparing.

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