Teen’s terror act ‘cruel joke thing’
A Sydney teenager said he was looking for a ‘‘slice of attention’’ but police believe what he did amounted to planning a terrorist act.
On June 14, the 17-year-old allegedly posted an ‘‘attack map’’ online, outlining four locations in Sydney’s CBD, accompanied by a series of chilling messages.
‘‘[I will] whip out my blade and start slashing every man and woman, even a child, around me,’’ and ‘‘its going to happen tomorrow morning, 10-11am AEST,’’ he allegedly posted on Facebook.
He then allegedly wrote he would take his own life ‘‘but as long as it’s over 25, 50 than Ill be happy’’. A short time later he deleted his Facebook account and reset his computer.
The following day police arrested the youth at his family home in The Oaks, a semi-rural suburb about 25km west of Campbelltown.
Details of the teenager’s messages were revealed during a bail application before the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal.
The court heard the youth, who is of Greek background and has significant developmental disabilities, also wrote a number of other violent posts in May this year.
On May 23, he allegedly wrote: ‘‘I can get a real long sharp knife and just curt up and kill as many people that I can under a minute.’’
Another post states: ‘‘If I were to do this it would be the most far worst bloody massacre ever to happen in Australia since the Port Arthur massacre.’’
After his arrest, he told police he never intended to carry out the attacks and that he wrote the posts as some form of ‘‘cruel joke thing’’ or attention seeking.
‘‘I could never hurt anybody, not in my life . . . I just wanted to get my own slice of attention for once.
‘‘I just, because I’m so ignored all of the time by everybody,’’ he said in an interview.
When he was asked why he wrote what he did, he responded by saying: ‘‘To make a statement about mental health and bullying. This has nothing to do with Isis, I’m not religious.’’
A statement written by the NSW Joint Counter Terrorism Team alleges that, in April this year, the teenager assumed the online name of Lonewolfhunter200 and accessed a website where he asked, ‘‘How to organise a terrorist attack without authorities knowing?’’
He also allegedly searched for how to make a fire bomb.
His lawyers argued he should be granted bail because he had no criminal record nor links to any terrorist group. He had also been diagnosed with depression and Aspergers’ syndrome.
But a panel of judges decided there was an unacceptable risk of the teenager endangering the safety of the community.
‘‘Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the posts on Facebook is that they took place over a significant period of time, ie 23 May-12 June 2016,’’ Justice Clifton Hoeben said in a judgment.
‘‘These do not appear to have been spur of the moment thoughts but rather to have been based on or driven by some deep-seated feelings of hostility.’’
The youth remains in jail charged with acting in preparation for, or planning, a terrorist act, and of using a telecommunications network with the intention to commit a serious offence.
At the time of the boy’s arrest his father said: ‘‘He’s no terrorist, he’s got mental health issues. He was trying to, like, just start off a prank, that’s it.’’