DAVAO CITY (MindaNews / 17 December) — The Bondi Beach shooters, Sajid Akram and son Naveed, stayed at a hotel along Magallanes Street in downtown Davao City from November 1 to 28 and stayed mostly in their rooms, hotel staff said.
Jenelyn Sayson, of GV Hotel, told MindaNews that father and son arrived noon of November 1. “The longest that they would be outside would be around an hour and they would be just back here in the hotel,” she added.
Every day, Sayson and other hotel staff would always see both Sajid and Naveed pass by the lobby on their way out or coming in.
Malacañang has rejected “the sweeping statement and the misleading characterization of the Philippines as the ISIS training hotspot.”
Presidential spokesperson Claire Castro, in a press briefing, said “there is no validated report or confirmation that individuals involved in the Bondi Beach incident received any form of training in the Philippines.”
The Bureau of Immigration (BI) confirmed that father and son were in the Philippines and indicated that their final destination would be Davao City. The BI added that the two eventually left Davao for Sydney via Manila last November 28.
Father and son went on a shooting rampage in Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia on December 14 that killed 15 people.
MindaNews noticed policemen guarding the GV Hotel Wednesday afternoon. This reporter then approached hotel staff after the police left.
Hotel staff said that the police asked them about the two guests and asked for CCTV footage from last month. The hotel, however, only has a week’s worth of storage.
Hotel staff informed MindaNews that the police checked the room where the father and son stayed but found nothing.
When the Akrams were still around, the housekeeping staff would just find rubbish from fast-food restaurants like Jollibee. There were no documents or other items left behind when father and son checked out.
Sayson said the two checked in with a confirmed online booking for seven days originally. On November 8, they informed the hotel that they would extend for another seven days and paid in cash. They would extend a week’s stay at a time until they finally checked out on November 28.
“They each had a big luggage and a backpack,” Sayson observed. Hotel staff never saw the two speak with other guests or had any visitors coming over. They would cross the street or walk towards the next block, and were never seen taking a ride or getting picked up in front of the hotel, she said.
Sayson said Naveed once asked one of the hotel staff where they could buy durian. They were directed to go to the Magsaysay Park and the Bankerohan market, but came back empty handed.
Sayson said they never noticed anything unusual about the Akrams. “We thought they probably had a business here in the city since they would go out and just come back again,” she added.
While other guests would be chatty and ask for directions, Sajid and Naveed rarely had that kind of interaction with the hotel staff.
Sayson said the Sajid and Naveed she saw on the news were the same persons who stayed in their hotel.
“Naveed appeared to have had a recent haircut when I saw them on the news; he had longer hair when he was here,” she noted. (Manman Dejeto / MindaNews)
