Ahmed al Ahmed describes tackling gunman Sajid Akram in CBS interview
“My soul asked me to do this,” said hero Ahmed al Ahmed, who captured and disarmed gunman Sajid Akram during the Bondi Beach terror attack.
In an interview with US broadcaster CBS, Al Ahmed described for the first time the moments when he struggled with Akram and took his shotgun away from the man who shot at Jews attending the Hanukkah event on December 14.
“I jumped on his back, hit him and… grabbed him with my right hand and started saying a word like ‘Drop your gun, stop doing what you’re doing’ to warn him,” Al Ahmed said.
In the footage watched by millions of people, Al Ahmed is seen jumping between two parked cars and grabbing Akram at 18.45.
“I’m doing things emotionally… I feel things in my body, in my brain, and I don’t want to see people being killed in front of me, I don’t want to see blood, I don’t want to hear gunshots, I don’t want to see people screaming, begging, screaming ‘help, help.’
“My soul asked me to do this, and everything, everything in my heart and my mind worked to, you know, manage and save people’s lives,” he said.
Ahmed al Ahmed tackles gunman Sajid Akram in Bondi.
Al Ahmed, a 44-year-old tobacco shop owner who was drinking coffee with a friend by the beach when the attack began, is still recovering from at least two bullet wounds in his left arm.
He told CBS correspondent Anna Coren, whose arm was in a sling, that he was not worried about the second gunman, Naveed Akram, Sajid’s son, and was solely focused on disarming the attacker closest to him.
