Sydney Islamic centre is SHUT DOWN – after links with one of the alleged Bondi shooters emerged

A Sydney council has shut down an Islamic centre in Bankstown after links to one of the alleged Bondi attackers emerged last month. 

The City of Canterbury-Bankstown Council issued a ‘cease use’ order to the Al Madina Dawah Centre in December after finding it did not have the required approvals to operate as a prayer hall. 

The Bankstown centre announced it had permanently closed on Wednesday. 

Controversial preacher Wissam Haddad previously lectured at and ran the centre. 

Alleged Bondi Beach terrorist Naveed Akram was identified as a follower of Haddad and had worshipped at the centre. He was also involved with Haddad’s Dawah Van street group. 

In June, the Dawah Van was stripped of its charity status following an ABC Four Corners investigation, which found it was radicalising young Australians while receiving taxpayer-backed concessions. 

There is no suggestion Haddad was involved in the Bondi attack. 

Earlier this year, Haddad was found by the Federal Court to have breached the Racial Discrimination Act over a series of antisemitic lectures.

During one of his extremist lectures at the centre, Haddad claimed that Jews were ‘scheming’ to pit Muslims against Muslims because it was ‘good for their business’.

He declared that Muslims in Palestine ‘are crying out to be saved from the descendants of pigs and monkeys’, in reference to Jews.

In another sermon, Haddad said the ‘sword is the only way’ to deal with people who ‘reject Allah’.

In another sermon, Haddad quoted Islamic texts about the ‘end of times’, describing Muslims fighting Jews and claiming even trees would speak.

In that sermon, he said the trees would tell Muslims: ‘Oh Muslim, there is a Jew behind me. Come and kill him’. 

While never charged with terrorism, Haddad has been repeatedly linked to Australian extremists and senior figures within global jihadist movements, ABC News reports.

An ABC investigation this year identified Haddad as a spiritual leader within Australia’s pro-Islamic State network.

A former ASIO undercover agent repeatedly warned the agency that the preacher was indoctrinating young people at the Al Madina Dawah Centre.

ABC-obtained footage shows Akram, 24, involved with a related Street Dawah group in mid-2019, when he was 17.

In one clip, he said God would reward actions taken ‘in his cause’.

In another, he told schoolboys that ‘the law of Allah… is more important than anything else you have to do – work, school… I can’t stress it enough’.