New Zealand tried to deport Auckland terrorist attack perpetrator

New Zealand authorities had been trying for years to deport the Islamist terrorist shot dead by police on Friday after stabbing seven people to death in an Auckland supermarket, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Sunday.

"It has been a frustrating process. Since 2018 ministers have been seeking advice on our ability to deport this individual," Ardern said in a statement regarding the alleged bomber, identified as Ahamed Aathil Mohamed Samsudeen, 32, from Sri Lanka.

The prime minister's statement detailed Samsudeen's background since arriving in New Zealand in 2011 on a student visa, and with the intention of obtaining refugee status, which he achieved two years later.

In 2016, police became suspicious that he fraudulently attained refugee status and after a court process he was denied status in February 2019, but authorities were unable to deport him because he had to finish his criminal proceedings for which he was in prison.

When he entered the Auckland supermarket last Friday, grabbed a knife inside the shop and injured seven people (three of whom are in critical condition), police were following him as a suspect and shot him down just a minute after he carried out his attack.

The alleged "Islamic State-inspired" terrorist, according to the police, was waiting for his appeal against the loss of refugee status to be resolved, so during that time he could not be deported or deprived of his liberty, despite being on the police's list of suspects, which has led to criticism of a possible crack in the system.

In 2017, the police received information that the suspect intended to join a terrorist group (he does not specify which one) and was arrested at the airport when he intended to travel to Malaysia, after which the trial was held in which he was denied refugee status.

At the time of the crime, both he and the authorities were awaiting the outcome of his appeal, which could confirm his expulsion from the country in the coming weeks.

Ardern insisted that the attack was the work of an individual "not a culture, not a religion or an ethnicity, but an individual who was captured by an ideology that nobody supports" in the country.

An annual report by New Zealand's intelligence service last year, cited by the New Zealand Herald, indicated that between 30 and 50 people have been investigated for suspected extremist violence and warned that potential attacks would be perpetrated by lone wolves in New Zealand.