New Zealand had exhausted all avenues to contain knife attacker: Ardern
New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says a Sri Lankan man who stabbed seven people in an assault on Friday had been under constant surveillance by police for the past 53 days.
The man, whose identity remains suppressed, grabbed a knife off a supermarket shelf in Auckland and attacked the seven, leaving three of them critically wounded, Arden said on Saturday, updating initial reports that only six people had been hurt.
He was shot and killed by the armed police tasked with tailing him, after the stabbing attack.
Arden said the man was watched for five years and jailed for three before authorities exhausted all avenues to keep him detained.
She said he was under a constant costly, and unusual, surveillance operation, in which about 30 people had been involved.
Ardern said police had made repeated efforts to speak to the “highly paranoid” man, curb his behavior, and put him in jail, over the past five years.
Although he was found guilty, “all avenues to continue his detention had been exhausted,” Ardern said.
The government has now come under scrutiny over its failure in preventing the attack, despite constant surveillance.
Police commissioner Andrew Coster said there had been nothing unusual about the assailant’s actions in the lead-up to the attack and that because he had a “high level of paranoia” the police kept their distance.
Due to the distance, it took more than two minutes for the surveillance and armed response team to reach the man and shoot him after he started his stabbing spree.
“We have had no legal grounds to detain this subject. Monitoring his actions has been entirely dependent on the surveillance teams being able to maintain their cover as they watched him over an extended period,” said the commissioner.
The 32-year-old attacker arrived in New Zealand in October 2011, and was traveling on a student visa.
Ardern said, “It was not known that he held extreme views about violent extremism at that time.”
She said changes to New Zealand’s counterterrorism legislation were expected to be approved by parliament before the end of the month.
“In late August, officials including the commissioner of police raised the possibility of expediting the amendments.”
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