Falsehoods spread about identity of Bondi attacker

 Falsehoods about the identity and motives of the man who stabbed at least six people to death in Sydney’s Bondi Junction Westfield shopping centre are continuing to be spread online.

NSW Police named him as 40-year-old Queenslander Joel Cauchi. Investigators have said they do not believe the attack was terrorism-related or linked to any ideology.

Queensland Police say Cauchi had been diagnosed with a mental illness when he was a teenager and that his mental health had declined in recent years.

However, various social media posts have falsely claimed the attack was ideological or that he has been identified as either a Jewish or Islamic extremist. 

Several posts incorrectly identified the perpetrator as a man with a Jewish surname.

“Still want to blame Muslims as a terrorist,” one post reads. “The attacker has been identified as … a radical Jew from Bondi.”

This post describes him as a “Jewish terrorist”.

Dozens of other posts make similar false claims here, here, here, here and here.

As a result, a Sydney university student received abusive messages on social media after the attack.

The student told The Australian newspaper the situation had been “highly distressing” for him and his family.

Many users have also claimed the attacker has been identified as a Muslim and/or an Islamic extremist. Many posts point to Bondi being popular with Sydney’s Jewish community.

This X post claims without evidence the man was a “knife-wielding #Muslim” while British far-right activist Tommy Robinson appears in this video stating “jihad has no borders.”

British journalist and broadcaster Julia Hartley-Brewer told her nearly half a million followers on X that the attacker had been identified as a Muslim extremist.

“Another day. Another terror attack by another Islamist terrorist,” she posted. 

“How long do our governments think we’re going to put up with this?”

Dozens of posts make similar claims here, here, here and here.

Other posts said the perpetrator was an “asylum seeker” here, here and here.

Cauchi grew up in Toowoomba, west of Brisbane, and had spent recent years sleeping in his car and at backpacker hostels.

At the time of writing, seven people are dead, including Cauchi who was shot by police. Several others are in hospital.

All information, text and images included on the AAP Websites is for personal use only and may not be re-written, copied, re-sold or re-distributed, framed, linked, shared onto social media or otherwise used whether for compensation of any kind or not, unless you have the prior written permission of AAP. For more information, please refer to our standard terms and conditions.