The man wrongly named by Channel Seven as the Bondi Junction stabbing attacker has asked the NSW Commissioner of Police to prosecute social media users who also misidentified him.
Ben Cohen, a Sydney university student, was named by the network as the “40-year-old lone wolf attacker”, after Joel Cauchi murdered six people in the Westfield shopping centre rampage.
Mr Cohen has since reached a confidential settlement in his defamation claim against the Seven Network.
However, his lawyer, Patrick George, said in a statement he had now asked the Commissioner of Police Karen Webb to consider prosecuting people who “wilfully identified Ben as the attacker” on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.
“These persons maliciously posted the false accusation for their own improper purposes, in some cases simply to draw attention to themselves,” Mr George said.
“It spread like wildfire not just in Australia but throughout the world over the Saturday night.”
An ABC investigation revealed Mr Cohen’s name circulated among anti-Semitic and pro-Kremlin social media accounts for about 14 hours after the attack.
Mr George said he and his client had handed over a “comprehensive” brief of evidence to the police, identifying “malicious and irresponsible use of social media”.
“We have requested the Commissioner of Police to consider prosecution for offences … for menacing, harassing and offensive conduct… criminal defamation [and]… for inciting violence on racial grounds,” Mr George said.
The ABC has contacted NSW Police for comment.
eSafety commissioner in battle with X
In separate action, Australia’s eSafety commissioner is already locked in a legal battle with Elon Musk’s X, over the social media platform’s refusal to remove video footage of the stabbing of a Western Sydney bishop and priest.
Under Australia’s Online Safety Act, the eSafety Commissioner has the power to order the removal of depictions of violent crime, child sex offences, or other “revolting or abhorrent phenomena [that] offend against the standards of morality, decency and propriety generally accepted by reasonable adults”.
X has promised to challenge such orders.
The federal government is also seeking public feedback on whether the eSafety commissioner’s take-down powers should be extended, to include hate speech, ‘pile-ons’ and deepfakes.
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