4^th October 2015
The Aus­trali­an Jewish community is shocked and appalled by the fatal shooting on October 2 outside Par­ra­matta police station of Curtis Cheng, a 58-year-old, long-standing and well-respected police employee. The fact that the victim was killed in a polit­ic­ally-motivated attack, and that his murderer was a 15-year old boy, Farhad Khalil Mohammad Jabar, makes the crime all the more deplor­able.
We agree entirely with the obser­va­tion of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull that the killing was an act of terrorism and “cold-blooded murder”.
We pray for Mr Cheng’s soul and share in the sorrow, grief and revulsion caused by the heinous crime which claimed his life. May his family be granted strength and comfort at this time of great pain.
We pay tribute to the NSW police officers at the station who appear to have had no choice but to kill Jabar in order to prevent him from shooting other innocent people.
A crime of this nature inev­it­ably raises questions about how anybody living in freedom and relative comfort in Australia could descend into such base behaviour. However, this terrible tragedy should not be an occasion for recrim­in­a­tions. On the contrary, it should serve to unite Aus­trali­ans to affirm all the more strongly the values that our society has always held dear, and to do so in our politics, our edu­ca­tion­al insti­tu­tions, our media and every facet of our public life.

Contact:
Peter Wertheim AM Executive Director
ph: 02 8353 8500 | m: 0408 160 904
e: [email protected] | www.ecaj.org.au