No motive yet...
A French man allegedly cried “Allahu Akbar” during a stabbing attack that left a 21-year-old British woman dead in front of up to 30 onlookers at a backpackers hostel in Australia’s north-east.
The 29-year-old suspect allegedly repeated the phrase – which means God is greatest in Arabic – when arrested by Queensland police, who told of being “confronted with a terrible scene” at the hostel in Home Hill, about 100km (62 miles) south of Townsville, on Tuesday night.
Mia Ayliffe-Chung. Photograph: Amy Browne/PA
The dead woman was named by Australian and British media as Mia Ayliffe-Chung, from Derbyshire, who was reported to be days into a three-month working holiday in the area after having worked in a bar in the Gold Coast.
Paying tribute, her half-sister Nicola Chung, who lives in south London, told the Guardian: “She was bubbly, carefree and had trained to be a nanny, because she loved children,” she said. “She was just backpacking. She had been travelling for a year and had arrived in Australia.”
Steve Gollschewski, a deputy police commissioner, said the alleged offender’s comments “may be construed as being of an extremist nature” and investigators were working with Australian federal police to establish his motives.
But police were “not ruling out any motivations at this early stage, whether they be criminal or political”.
https://www.theguardian.com/austral...by-frenchman-at-australian-backpackers-hostel
A French man allegedly cried “Allahu Akbar” during a stabbing attack that left a 21-year-old British woman dead in front of up to 30 onlookers at a backpackers hostel in Australia’s north-east.
The 29-year-old suspect allegedly repeated the phrase – which means God is greatest in Arabic – when arrested by Queensland police, who told of being “confronted with a terrible scene” at the hostel in Home Hill, about 100km (62 miles) south of Townsville, on Tuesday night.
Mia Ayliffe-Chung. Photograph: Amy Browne/PA
The dead woman was named by Australian and British media as Mia Ayliffe-Chung, from Derbyshire, who was reported to be days into a three-month working holiday in the area after having worked in a bar in the Gold Coast.
Paying tribute, her half-sister Nicola Chung, who lives in south London, told the Guardian: “She was bubbly, carefree and had trained to be a nanny, because she loved children,” she said. “She was just backpacking. She had been travelling for a year and had arrived in Australia.”
Steve Gollschewski, a deputy police commissioner, said the alleged offender’s comments “may be construed as being of an extremist nature” and investigators were working with Australian federal police to establish his motives.
But police were “not ruling out any motivations at this early stage, whether they be criminal or political”.
https://www.theguardian.com/austral...by-frenchman-at-australian-backpackers-hostel
