I had breakfast every day with the alleged Bondi Beach killer… here’s what the stuttering, awkward loner told me

A Sydney shopkeeper who worked shoulder to shoulder with the alleged Bondi Beach attacker has revealed details of Naveed Akram’s disturbing behaviour.

Bricklayer Rishy supervised Akram for almost a year on construction of the Crows Nest Metro station on Sydney’s north shore and said they regularly had breakfast together.

It turned out that Akram was a strange, quiet, lonely person, with no real friends or social life, until one day he suddenly appeared on a construction site and attacked a co-worker.

Rishy believes 24-year-old Akram is the closest thing he has to a true friend and was stunned when footage emerged of him allegedly opening fire at the Bondi Hanukkah festival.

The massacre left 16 people dead, including Akram’s gunman, his 50-year-old father Sajid, and dozens of others were injured. Akram is currently charged with murder on 15 out of 59 charges.

Rishy is still struggling to grasp all of this and revealed the frightening predictions made by his colleagues on the site at the time.

‘We talked about it,’ he told the Daily Mail.

‘We’ve had conversations that Nav could be one of those guys you read about.’

Bricklayer Rishy was Akram’s supervisor at a contract at Crows Nest Metro Station

Naveed Akram’s colleague claims he exhibits strange and isolating behavior

Rishy said Akram told co-workers about the gun permit and said he was ‘really proud of it’.

‘This keeps me awake at night now,’ he said.

‘Then one day, while we were building the scaffolding, one of the men said something about God. I don’t know exactly what was said but it wasn’t good and Nav lost it.

He took his courage and lashed out at the man who was yelling that you should never talk like that about a god.

‘Everyone was shocked because the guy wasn’t really talking at all.

‘But as soon as it exploded, it calmed down as if nothing had happened.’

Rishy recalls that Akram was completely insignificant in the beginning. He was punctual, took pride in his work, and largely kept to himself.

He never talked about his family, never mentioned his weekend plans, and rarely participated in casual chats on the site.

Akram spoke with a visible stutter and refused to eat

The cafe in North Sydney where the couple went for breakfast every morning

But as the months went by, Rishy said Akram began speaking with a noticeable stutter, refused to eat, and completely shut down when the team discussed their dating lives.

“When I first met Nav in 2022, he was a pretty quiet kid and a really polite kid; I remember thinking that kid was very respectful and had good manners,” Rishy said.

‘He never ate for breakfast or lunch, he didn’t even drink water and just sat there with his arms crossed and watched us eat.

‘He didn’t scroll through his phone, he just looked at me and I said to him “Nav mate, aren’t you hungry?” I asked, but he just said expressionlessly, “No.”

“There was a certain guy who was talking about women, talking about private details of their weekends, and Nav was staying silent,” Rishy said.

‘You could see the tension as he was completely devoid of emotion but he didn’t say a word and just watched everyone chatting.’

After an outburst with a colleague, others refused to share a room with him when a contract came out requiring them to stay at an Airbnb for a night in Newcastle.

‘The boss asked the man he was in conflict with to share a twin room, and he said no,’ he said.

Akram has gone from an awkward young worker to someone the crew is actually worried about

‘The worker who shared the same thing with him said he got up at night to go to the toilet and Nav sat there upright praying.

‘He couldn’t sleep and the man was scared. ‘Nav, mate, it’s 2 in the morning, he’d say ‘get some sleep’ but he didn’t.’

More than a week after the tragedy in Bondi, Rishy says he still cannot accept the tragedy.

Officials have since revealed that ASIO investigated Akram in 2019 for suspected extremist links to terrorist organisations.