Social media posts wrongly characterize the Sydney mall attacker as Jewish or Muslim

New South Wales police identified the suspect as Joel Cauchi, 40, of Queensland. Police said Cauchi attacked a police officer; the officer shot Cauchi, who died before paramedics could arrive. 

Police Commissioner Anthony Cooke said in an April 13 press conference that Cauchi suffered from mental health issues and that there was no evidence that the attack was driven by any "particular motivation, ideology, or otherwise." 

"We are continuing to work through the profiling of the offender but very clearly to us at this stage, it would appear that this is related to the mental health of the individual involved," Cooke said.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported that social media posts falsely identified Ben Cohen, a 20-year-old Jewish student at the University of Technology Sydney, as the attacker. The paper said the misleading claim started spreading April 13, hours before investigators released the attacker’s name. Cohen’s father took to X to call on police to release the real name of the suspect.

We rate the claim that the Sydney attacker was a "Zionist" who targeted Jewish people so that people would think the attacker was Muslim False.