Mum of Brit backpacker stabbed to death at Aussie hostel slams Donald Trump for falsely calling her death a ‘terror attack’
Mia Ayliffe-Chung, 20, and fellow Brit Tom Jackson were killed in the August 2016 attack
THE mum of a Brit backpacker who was stabbed to death at an Australian hostel has slammed “ignorant” Donald Trump for falsely calling her death a “terror attack”.
Mia Ayliffe-Chung, 20, and fellow Brit Tom Jackson were killed in the August 2016 attack which was included in Trump’s list of 78 “underreported” terrorist atrocities.
Frenchman Smail Ayad, 29, has been charged with the murder of Mia and Tom as well as assaulting police officers during the frenzied rampage at a Queensland hostel.
But Mia’s mum Rosie said police have consistently maintained there is no terror link in the attack that was widely reported in Australian and international media.
“The possibility of Mia and Tom’s deaths being consequent to an Islamic terror attack was discounted in the early stages of the police investigation,” Ms Ayliffe wrote in an open letter to Trump.
“This was done through international collaboration on the parts of Queensland police department and the French anti-terrorist force.”
She said she decided to speak out to quash the “myth of a connection between my daughter’s death and Islamic fundamentalism”.
“This vilification of whole nation states and their people based on religion is a terrifying reminder of the horror that can ensue when we allow ourselves to be led by ignorant people into darkness and hatred,” she said.
In the weeks after the attack at Shelley’s Backpackers hostel in Home Hill, south of Townsville, Ms Ayliffe also insisted the attack was unrelated to terrorism.
“The Frenchman being held on suspicion of my daughter’s murder is not an Islamic fundamentalist – he has never set foot in a mosque,” she wrote in a blog.
Mia had been working as a bartender during the six months before she was knifed in front of 30 horrified witnesses.
Her final Facebook posts show her enjoying her new life abroad, declaring she was “living my dream”.
Police are looking into claims 29-year-old kickboxing champion Ayad had become infatuated by Mia and became angry when she rejected his advances.
Officers said there was no evidence he had been radicalised.
The attack was one of 78 released in a list of terror attack by the White House on Monday.
The list was compiled in response to an assertion earlier in the day by Trump that the “very dishonest press” often doesn’t report on terror attacks.
It includes some very heavily covered news events, including last year’s attack at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando and the series of attacks in Paris in 2015.
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