British woman dead in Australia stabbing

SYDNEY, Aug 24, (AFP): A young British woman died and a man was critically injured when a French national allegedly stabbed three people while saying “Allahu Akbar” at an Australian backpacker’s hostel, police said Wednesday.

Police are investigating the murder, which occurred late Tuesday in Home Hill, a rural town south of Townsville in far north Queensland state, but could not say whether the alleged attacker had been radicalised.

The motivations behind the stabbings, which left a 30-year-old British man in a critical condition and a local man with non-life threatening injuries, were still unknown, Deputy Commissioner Steve Gollschewski said.