By Riley Walter
The NSW Joint Counter Terrorism Team has charged a teenage boy over a stabbing at the University of Sydney that led to the lockdown of parts of its Camperdown campus.
Just after 8.30am on July 2, emergency services responded to reports of a stabbing near the university’s Parramatta Road entrance.
The University of Sydney’s Camperdown campus was sent into chaos after a stabbing on July 2.Credit: Janie Barrett
Melvern Kurniawan, 22, was treated at the scene for a stab wound to his neck but was later released from the nearby Royal Prince Alfred Hospital.
Police cordons were established after the incident, with parts of the campus shut down as officers investigated.
Melvern Kurniawan, 22, the victim of the alleged stabbing at the Camperdown campus.
On Tuesday, NSW Joint Counter Terrorism Team officers charged a 14-year-old boy with causing wounding or grievous bodily harm to a person with intent to murder and three counts of damaging property with fire or an explosion.
It is alleged the teenager, who was wearing camouflage gear at the time, stabbed Kurniawan in the neck from behind with a kitchen knife before fleeing on a bus.
The charges come a day after Australia’s national terrorism threat level was raised from “possible” to “probable”.
The growing isolation of young men and eight suspected extremist plots since April had put authorities on alert.
ASIO boss Mike Burgess said on Monday that “individuals are moving to violence with little or no warning and little or no planning”.
“Acts of violence can be almost spontaneous or purely reactive,” he said, warning that teens were increasingly getting caught up in extremism.
CCTV footage showed a person matching the teenager’s description nearby after the alleged attack.
“In the recent cases, the oldest [alleged] perpetrator was 21 and the youngest was 14. Extremist ideologies, conspiracies, misinformation, are flourishing in the online ecosystem, and young Australians are particularly vulnerable.”
CCTV captured an image of a person matching the 14-year-old’s description nearby after the alleged stabbing, nursing what appeared to be an injured hand.
Police said he had been receiving mental health treatment since the alleged stabbing.
The destruction of property charges arise from incidents in which police allege the teenager set fire to several bins at two locations in Sydney’s inner west on July 1.
In the wake of the University of Sydney stabbing, it was revealed that the 14-year-old boy had threatened to carry out a mass shooting less than a year before the incident, but these charges were dropped on mental health grounds.
Last September, the teenager had planned to carry out an alleged “Christchurch-style” attack, sources close to the case who are not authorised to speak publicly have alleged.
The teenager allegedly made violent threats to classmates at an inner-west Sydney school and mentioned the terrorist who killed 51 people in the 2019 Christchurch mosque massacre in New Zealand.
The teenager was charged last year with using carriage service to menace, harass or offend and stalking or intimidating with intent to cause fear of physical harm.
Those charges were dismissed on mental health grounds, and he was put into the care of a doctor.
In a children’s court on Tuesday, the 14-year-old was refused bail to reappear on October 1.