Police arrested a US citizen in Arizona for online comments that allegedly incited a “religiously motivated terrorist attack” in Australia a year ago that killed six people.
Police in the Australian state of Queensland confirmed on Wednesday that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) arrested the 58-year-old from Heber Overgaard, Arizona, on 1 December. The attack took place on 12 December 2022 at a remote estate in Wieambilla, Queensland, when Gareth Train, his brother Nathaniel and Nathaniel’s wife Stacey shot two police officers and a random passer-by from an ambush.
Four police officers arrived at the house to investigate a report of a missing person. According to police officers, they were caught in a hail of gunfire. Two officers were able to escape and raised the alarm. The Trains fought back against the police for a long time but were eventually shot and killed. Queensland police assistant commissioner Cheryl Scanlon told reporters:
We know the offenders executed a religiously motivated terrorist attack in Queensland. They were motivated by a Christian extremist ideology.
Gareth Train began following the suspect on YouTube in May 2020. A year later, they began communicating directly, investigators said. Scanlon noted:
The man repeatedly sent messages containing Christian end-of-days ideology to Gareth and then later to Stacey.
FBI spokeswoman in Australia Nithiana Mann said the arrest was the result of a joint investigation between the two countries. She noted:
The FBI has a long memory and an even longer reach. From Queensland, Australia, to the remote corners of Arizona.
Australia has some of the strictest gun laws in the world, so gun crime is rare in the country. In April 1996, a shooting in the island state of Tasmania occurred when a gunman killed 35 people in a cafe.
