Raghe Mohamed Abdi suspected of Brisbane terror attack

Accused ISIS supporter suspected of murdering an elderly couple in their Brisbane home before being shot dead on a motorway.

The scene of the shooting of Mr Abdi on the Logan Motorway in Brisbane. Picture: Supplied

An accused ISIS supporter is suspected to have snapped and murdered an elderly couple in their Brisbane home, before being shot dead lunging at police with a knife, more than two years after first coming to the attention of counter-terror investigators.

State and federal police said on Friday that they were jointly investigating the actions of 22-year-old Raghe Mohamed Abdi as an act of lone-wolf terrorism.

Mr Abdi was found with an item police believed was from the home of murdered couple Maurice and Zoe Antill, who were in their 80s, directly linking the two incidents.

Investigators could not immediately identify any prior connection between Mr Abdi and the Antills apart from their living in the same area, and suspected it was a random attack on strangers.

The Antills suffered significant injuries. They were found dead in their home at Parkinson in Brisbane’s south around 3pm Thursday after failing to attend a medical appointment.

Nine hours earlier, police received reports of a man walking on the Logan Motorway at Drewvale, disrupting traffic.

Two officers were trying to coax Mr Abdi off the road when he threatened them with a knife, shouting “Allahu Akbar” shortly before being shot.

“We are treating this matter as a terrorism event,” Queensland Police Service Deputy Commissioner Tracy Linford said.

Police were looking into items found at the Antills’ home that may be owned by Mr Abdi, she said.

Officers doorknocked nearby properties for witnesses but also to check on the welfare of residents, concerned there could be more victims.

“If you have family living in that Parkinson area, it would be a good time to check in on them and make sure that they’re okay,” Ms Linford said.

Australian Federal Police Assistant Commissioner Scott Lee said police believed Mr Abdi acted alone and that there was no ongoing threat.

Mr Abdi “first came to notice in 2018”, Mr Lee said.

In May last year, counter-terrorism officers arrested Mr Abdi at Brisbane’s international airport as he waited to board a flight to ­Somalia with a one-way ticket.

Police suspected Mr Abdi was going to Somalia to fight with terror group al-Shabaab, but he was released without charge due to insufficient evidence, Mr Lee said.

His passport was cancelled, and in June last year he was charged with refusing to hand over his mobile phone’s passcode.

In court, he refused to answer the magistrate or acknowledge the court’s authority and was remanded in custody. He­ was granted bail on September 3 this year.

“There had been no indications of any escalation to violence in the lead-up to these events,” Mr Lee said.

“Up until this point, the information that we had was that his focus had been primarily … an offshore threat not an onshore threat.”

Mr Abdi was required to wear a GPS tracking device as a condition of his bail.

Ms Linford said he removed the device around 3.30pm Wednesday, setting off an emergency alert, but police were unable to find him before the fatal shooting.

Both officers involved in the shooting had body-worn cameras activated.

“I watched the body-worn camera (footage) and I don’t think they had a choice,” Ms Linford said.

In 2014, Mr Abdi was praised by federal Labor MP Jim Chalmers in parliament after setting up a school unity council with another student.

The two students were “fine young men … concerned about the impact of events overseas on the way we treat each other here at home”, Mr Chalmers said at the time.

Mr Abdi‘s lawyer, Terry O’Gorman, has said there was no evidence he was radicalised and that Mr Abdi’s father contacted police Wednesday night to report his son was experiencing a severe mental episode.

Mr Antill, 87, and his wife, 86, had lived in their single-storey brick and tile home in Ulinga Crescent for the past 23 years.

Mobile phone camera footage emerged on Friday of a heated confrontation between relatives and friends of Mr Abdi and police following the shooting. “You shot our son,” a woman said.

Mr Abdi’s family released dashcam footage purportedly showing part of his confrontation with police, and claimed it contradicted the police account.

“I believe it was a trigger happy reaction,” said his father, Mohammed Abdi.

“My son was a very peaceful minded person. He has never put his hand on anybody in his life.

“My son needed help when he was there. The help he got was to get shot.”

Police shot his son “because of his ethnicity”, he said.

“I believe if my son was from an Anglo community, and he was walking there yesterday on the street, and he needed help, the response would have been different,” he said