Teenager who planned terror attack in Sydney tells court he was radicalised online and used AI to strategise
Summary
A 16-year-old in Australia who admitted preparing for a terrorist act told a court that online extremist content influenced him and that he used ChatGPT to research his plans. The New South Wales Supreme Court sentenced him to a three-year community corrections order, saying he had no concrete attack plan and had shown remorse.Key Facts
- The teenager, identified in court as RK, was 14 when the offending occurred in 2024.
- He said he first encountered extremist material on TikTok, then viewed increasingly violent content and discussed it with people online.
- RK focused on the Sydney Opera House as a possible target and asked ChatGPT about its security arrangements.
- He used Telegram to seek instructions for making a pressure cooker bomb and tried to contact Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, but did not reach him.
- The court said RK had not obtained bomb-making materials and had no concrete plan to carry out an attack.
- Justice Stephen Campbell imposed a three-year community corrections order instead of jail time.
- The judge said RK had expressed remorse and had undergone six sessions of religious and ethical training with a Muslim cleric.
- An Australian security official told a parliamentary inquiry that detecting and disrupting online radicalisation among young people had become challenging.
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