Bondi attack intervener recounts fear after disarming gunman

Ahmed al Ahmed, who disarmed a gunman during the Bondi Beach attack, has described fearing police might shoot him after he took the weapon. In his new book and an interview, he said he worried about being mistaken for an attacker as a Middle Eastern man holding a rifle at an attack on a Jewish community.

He said his purpose was to disarm the gunman and save lives, not to shoot him. His account describes his own thoughts and actions in a dangerous moment. It does not establish that police intended to fire on him or that any officer made such a decision.

Al Ahmed was seriously injured during the attack and later received public recognition for intervening. The new interview revisits that experience and the risk he took. It is not a report of another shooting at Bondi or a fresh criminal allegation against him.

UPDATE: The book, Light Will Win, adds his perspective to an event in which fifteen people died. Earlier coverage on this page concerned withdrawn charges in a separate family-dispute case. Those proceedings are distinct from his intervention at the beach and from the newly published account.