Al Noor mosque attack survivors: ‘He looked me in the eyes and started to shoot’

Friday, 3 November 2023

Warning: Some readers may find this article distressing.

Survivors of the Christchurch terror attacks have spoken of having to break through an emergency door at Al Noor mosque as they fled for their lives.

They described being shot at by terrorist Brenton Tarrant as they hid behind cars outside the back of the mosque after they’d escaped. One was shot in the arm.

The functionality of the emergency door in the mosque’s main prayer room is one of the issues being looked into at the coronial inquest into the attacks.

More first responders to the Al Noor mosque will give evidence on Monday.

Ahmad Alayedy arrived at the Deans Ave mosque for Friday prayers at around 1.30pm on March 15, 2019, parking his car on the grass around the back and making his way into the main prayer room through the front entrance, he told the inquest.

He saw a number of his friends there, and took his place on the left hand side of the room beside the emergency door.

“After the Imam started I heard some very loud sounds”, he said. He had never heard a gun before so didn’t immediately realise what was happening.

“Then I saw bullets, and people being hit by the bullets. That is when I realised it was the sound of bullets, (they were) coming close to me, past me, about five metres away from me.”

Alayedy described trying to open the emergency door behind him, but it wouldn’t open. He then broke the glass panel of the bottom of the door with his leg and escaped by crawling through the gap, he said.

He took shelter behind his car outside the back of the mosque.

“I could still hear the shooting and people yelling,” he said.

Alayedy hid behind his car for a few minutes, during which time the shooting stopped, he said. He stood up to see what was going on, and over the tops of the cars could see a man wearing a helmet and carrying a large gun up to his chest at the gates of the mosque, he told the inquest.

“We were both looking at each other … as soon as he saw me, he started shooting at me.

“I ducked down behind the car, the bullets were coming towards me, about two or three centimetres away from me. I know the gunman was trying to shoot me. He looked me in the eyes and then started to shoot me. None of the bullets hit me.”

Alayedy said a person hiding beside him was shot in the arm. He hid for about 15 more minutes, until a policeman saw him and told him to come out with his hands up. He then walked out to the road.

“I could see (my friend) Hamza lying on the ground in front of the car I had been hiding behind. I knew he was dead.”

He said he then saw another person lying on the ground towards the back of the mosque who also appeared to be dead. Another one of his friends appeared to have been shot in the legs.

“I was in shock at what happened.”

Mohammad Siddiqui was the man who was shot in the arm as he hid near Alayedy, the inquest heard.

Siddiqui told the inquest that he lived just a couple of minutes’ walk away from the mosque at the time and walked there for prayers about 1.40pm.

He told his wife to stay at home that day as she was feeling unwell, and his son was in the shower so was going to follow him down when he was ready, he said. He walked to the mosque by himself.

As he arrived, he started his own prayer. The moment he finished, he heard a loud bang coming from the front of the mosque.

“My immediate thought was that it was a gun, because I heard similar sounds on TV and in movies. At the first shot I jumped up, rushed to the door and tried to open it. It was locked, I couldn’t open it.”

Two other men joined him in kicking the door to try and get out, and after about 10 seconds they managed to smash the glass panel and three of them climbed through to escape, he said.

“At this time I could still hear gunfire, now coming from inside the main prayer room.”

Siddiqui hid behind a car at the back of the mosque and called his wife at about 1.48pm, he said.

“I told my wife to not let my son come down, because there was a shooting going on. She said my son had already gone and come back because he heard the shooting sound.

“She asked me if I was alright, I said I was, I was fine at the time. Then everything went silent, I thought he (the shooter) must've gone, then a minute later I heard the shooting again … I felt a strong blast on my left arm.

“I dropped my phone and fell to the ground, and put my phone on speaker and heard my wife asking me if I was OK. I was screaming in pain and could feel warm blood spilling out of my jacket.”

Siddiqui said he tied his T-shirt around his upper left arm. Another person nearby, who he did not know, helped him tie it up.

“The gunshots had only just stopped, I looked at my arm and saw a hole about five or six centimetres, and immediately felt dizzy.”

The next thing he remembered was a policeman in black approaching him and telling him to put his hands up.

“At first I thought he might be the shooter, (but) he didn’t shoot me.”

He remembered seeing a 15-year-old boy asking for help, who he told to stay lying down until the police came. He went out the front and left in an ambulance shortly after. He believed he was the first person to leave the scene in an ambulance.

“I had been living in New Zealand for about 20 years at the time … I never would've thought anything like this could happen in New Zealand.”

Another survivor, Mohamed Adwy, began his statement by thanking the coroner for giving him the opportunity to speak.

“It wasn’t easy for me to stand before you and share the day of the massacre where I lost my friends.”

Adwy said that he was speaking to the inquest in the hope of alleviating guilt he felt at not being able to help more on the day.

“(I) hope we can provide answers to questions, to ensure no one will ever have to go through an experience like this again.”

He said he remembered Imam Gamal Fouda was a few minutes into his speech in the mosque when he heard noises coming from the front. He didn’t know what it was at first, he said.

“I saw people running, and I could hear single shots and then a change. I heard some glass smashing beside me and decided I had to leave the mosque. I jumped up and ran.”

There were a lot of people trying to get out, and Adwy got jammed up alongside the rear door and was injured, but got out, he said. He ran outside and hid behind a shed at the rear of the mosque.

“I could hear bullets hitting the shed … so I jumped over the fence.”

He was hiding in a neighbouring driveway when he saw a car parked there with the boot facing him and open.

“I looked up and saw a man with an army suit appear in the driveway … I thought he was in the army and shot the gunman.”

Adwy began walking towards the person in the army uniform to get help, but then heard someone shout, ‘He is the killer, he just killed someone’. He now knew the person who shouted to be Len Peneha, a neighbour of the mosque, he told the inquest.

“The man saw us, threw his gun on the ground and retrieved another gun from his car.”

He and others who escaped ran into Peneha’s home for safety, and watched as the terrorist got into his car and left, running over someone as he did so.

The survivor then ran back outside and to the mosque, where he saw a man at the front lying down with blood all around him and a firearm on the ground.

“I walked back inside and saw a lot of bodies.

“The scene was horrific.”

Adwy held back tears as he described seeing his friend Atta Elayyan lying face down on the ground inside the mosque.

“I tried to speak to him but he didn’t reply. He was lying down on his face and was opening his eyes, but not responding. “

Shortly after, he phoned 111 and told them to send an ambulance and that the terrorist had left, and lots of people were dying, he said.

As he went back outside, he told an armed police officer that they needed to send an ambulance, and that there were lots of people still alive in the mosque.

The officer looked scared, and had his gun up like there was still a shooter there, he said.

“I told him the shooter had already left and I saw him … I said, ‘If you are not going to help, just let us back inside’.”

He said the officer told him to leave or he would be arrested.

“We wanted to stay and get help into the mosque, I was frustrated there was no action.

“The scene was chaotic … I knew there were people inside the mosque who were dying or needed help. This was the worst thing. I felt helpless. I knew at least four injured were still alive inside the mosque.”

Around this time a vehicle arrived and the survivor and some others helped three injured people into the vehicle, who were then taken to hospital, the man said.

Detective Sergeant Damon Wells was the Al Noor mosque scene examiner on the day, arriving about 4pm.

He found a man’s body laid over the frame of the prayer room’s emergency exit door, so did not immediately try to open and test it, as it would’ve been “disrespectful to him to do so”, he said.

A number of police teams were tasked with removing the dead that afternoon.

After the man by the door frame was taken away, Wells said no matter what he tried, he was unable to open the door, despite twisting the handle both ways and pushing a nearby release button. There was power to the mosque at this time so this should not have been a factor, Wells said.

The inquest continues.