New Zealand police shot and killed a man who wounded six people with a knife in a supermarket in the suburb of New Lynn, in Auckland.
In the words of the first Minister, Jacinda Ardern, what happened this Friday is a “terrorist attack of a violent extremist”.
The man was shot down by the police.
The information they have passed say that the attacker is a citizen of Sri Lanka who arrived in New Zealand in 2011. New Zealand National Security Agents would have had a file for five years.
They could intervene quickly because they were following it when he entered the supermarket.
According to local media, the attacker took a large knife from a showcase and threw himself against the clients who were at the establishment.
“It was someone who was known for our national security agencies and it was a matter of concern, it was being constantly monitored, there are very few who enter this category,” explained Ardern, who described the attacker as a “lone wolf” follower of the ISIS
.
The country leader of the Pacific promised the public all the case information as soon as possible.
“What happened today was carried out by an individual, not a faith, not a culture, not an ethnicity, but an individual person who seized an ideology that is not supported here by anyone or by any community,” said Ardern
.
A video published on social networks showed buyers at the supermarket seconds after the attack, which did not last more than a minute until the police arrived and fired the man.
The witnesses who came running from the supermarket say they listened to six shots.
“There is someone here with a knife … it has a knife,” a woman is heard in the video.
“Someone was stabbed,” he screams another person.
Of the six wounded, three were transferred to the hospital in a critical state and one in a serious state, announced the ST John ambulance service in a statement.
After the attack, the country’s media have questioned how it is possible that an Islamist extremist known and closely followed by the police, has been able to perpetrate an attack.
“The reality is that when someone is watching someone 24 hours a day, seven days a week, it is not possible to be immediately by their side at all times, the staff intervened as fast as they could and avoided more injuries in what
That was a terrible situation, “said police chief Andrew Coster, who added that the attacker was very aware that they were watching him and that the teams should keep the distance to be effective.
New Zealand has been alert by attacks since the attack on March 15, 2019 in the city of Christchurch, when the Supremacist White Brenton Tarrant killed 51 people in two mosques in the city.
Last summer, the author of the slaughter was sentenced to life imprisonment.
It was the first time in the history of New Zealand that this sentence was imposed.
Last May, the police arrested a man who stabbed five people in a supermarket in Dunedin, in the south of New Zealand.
Then, Jacinda Ardern said that the attack did not seem to be related to terrorism.