Seven people was attacked with a knife of 32-year-old Ahamed Aathill Mohamed Samsudeen, at a supermarket in Auckland, Friday.
The condition was still critical for three of them on Sunday.
The perpetrator was shot and killed on the spot by police detectives who had been shadowing him continuously since July. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says the man was inspired by the extremist Islamist group IS.
A court order that had prevented the publication of the man’s name and immigration status was revoked on Sunday. Ardern says that the immigration authority INZ had tried to deport the man, who had citizenship from Sri Lanka, since 2018.
Get a student visa
He came to New Zealand in 2011 on a student visa. He then applied for refugee status. The application was rejected, but he appealed it and was granted refugee status in December 2013.
In 2016, the man ended up in the police and the immigration authority’s spotlight when they were made aware of information that indicated that the man’s refugee status had been given on incorrect grounds.
The refugee status was revoked in 2019 and he was to be sent out of the country, but the man appealed the deportation decision.
Protected status
INZ then investigated whether the man could be arrested while the appeal was being processed.
– It was very disappointing and frustrating when the legal conclusion was that this was not possible, says Ardern.
The man was considered a “protected person” due to the status of the country he had traveled from, and as a result of the presumed treatment he would receive there if he was sent back. People with protected status cannot be deported from New Zealand.
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