The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has arrested a man for his alleged involvement in a terrorist attack in Australia.
The unnamed 58-year-old Arizona citizen was charged over online comments he made that authorities believe may have incited the ““religiously motivated terrorist attack” in Australia a year ago, in which six people died.
According to the investigators, the incident occurred in the rural community of Wiembilla on December 12 when Queensland state police officers Rachel McCrow and Matthew Arnold and innocent bystander Alan Dare were fatally shot by Gareth Train, his brother Nathaniel Train, and Nathanial’s wife Stacey Train.
Four police officers were dispatched to the scene to look into reports of a missing person. Police reported at the time that they walked into a hail of gunfire. Two of the officers were able to get away and sound the alarm.
After a six-hour shootout, the three Trains—who have been suspected of being conspiracy theorists—were killed by the police.
Nearly a year later, the Arizona man was taken into custody by FBI agents last week in the vicinity of Heber Overgaard, Arizona, on U.S. charges that he instigated the violence through comments made on the internet in December of last year, as per Queensland Police Assistant Commissioner Cheryl Scanlon.
He was remanded in custody when he appeared in an Arizona court on Tuesday and is facing a potential five-year prison sentence if convicted.
“We know that the offenders executed a religiously motivated terrorist attack in Queensland,” Scanlon said at a joint conference with the FBI. “They were motivated by a Christian extremist ideology.”
The bureau is still investigating the alleged motive of the American. Queensland police had flown to the Grand Canyon State to help investigators domestically. Gareth apparently began following the 58-year-old suspect on YouTube in May 2020.
Nitiana Mann, the FBI’s legal attaché for Australia, said that the bureau was committed to assisting the Queensland Police Service in its investigation.
“The FBI has a long memory and an even longer reach. From Queensland, Australia, to the remote corners of Arizona,” Mann said. “The FBI and QPS worked jointly and endlessly to bring this man to justice, and he will face the crimes he is alleged to have perpetrated.”
