Edited pictures of British influencer falsely linked to Bondi attack
- Published on December 22, 2025 at 03:39
- 2 min read
- By AFP Indonesia
As Australia reeled from its worst mass shooting in decades, baseless rumours surfaced online that one of the attackers was named Khaled Al-Nabulsi, a Lebanese national of Palestinian descent. But authorities have identified the perpetrators of the Bondi Beach attack as Sajid Akram, an Indian citizen, and his son Naveed, an Australian citizen. Pictures shared in the false posts are also edited and in fact show a British influencer.
"The second perpetrator of the deadly terrorist attacks in Sydney today, Khaled Al-Nabulsi, is a Lebanese national of Palestinian descent who had previously pledged allegiance to ISIS," reads an Indonesian-language Facebook post shared on December 16, 2025.
Featuring two images of a man with thick facial hair, it surfaced days after gunmen opened fire into crowds at a Jewish festival in Sydney's Bondi Beach, killing 15 people (archived link).
Authorities have linked the attack to "Islamic State ideology", and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese promised a sweeping crackdown to banish the "evil of antisemitism from our society".
Similar posts alleging one of the gunmen was Lebanese and named Khaled Al-Nabulsi surfaced in English, Arabic and French.
Authorities have identified the shooters as 50-year-old Sajid Akram and his 24-year-old son Naveed. Sajid was killed in a shootout with police but Naveed survived.
In a press conference on December 15, Minister for Home Affairs Tony Burke said "the son is an Australian citizen" and the father had originally arrived in Australia on a student visa in 1998 (archived link). He did not give any information about his nationality.
According to Indian police, Sajid was an Indian citizen originally from southern Hyderabad city who migrated to Australia in 1998 (archived link).
Moreover, a combination of reverse image and keyword searches on PimEye and Google found the images in the posts depict Charles Cornish-Dale, a British influencer also known as "Raw Egg Nationalist".
The pictures have been edited to make him appear as if he has a thick beard.
The first image was uploaded on Cornish-Dale's X account on May 27, with a caption about him meeting English actor Stephen Graham (archived link).
The second image appeared on The Epoch Times website in August 2024, a year before the Bondi Beach shooting, and was also edited to insert a different background (archived link).
AFP has debunked the wave of misinformation triggered by the Bondi Beach shooting.
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