Sydney mall attack: Confronting pro-Kremlin troll on false claims Jewish student was killer
Under the alter ego “Aussie Cossack”, he posted untrue speculation that a 20-year-old Jewish university student was the attacker who had stabbed and killed five women and one man at a Westfield shopping centre in Sydney.
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The actual attacker, shot dead by police, was later identified as Joel Cauchi, 40. The authorities say his actions were most probably related to his mental health.
Within hours of Mr Boikov’s post on X, the false claims he amplified had reached hundreds of thousands of people on X and Telegram, and had even been repeated by a national news outlet.
I tracked him down because I want to understand how his posts triggered an online frenzy that reached the mainstream media - with serious consequences for Mr Cohen, who’s described his distress at being accused of an attack he had nothing to do with.
