BRISBANE, Australia – A judge has ruled that a Frenchman will not be tried for killing two British backpackers in an Australian hostel in 2016 because of mental illness.
Justice Jean Dalton decided in the Mental Health Court in Brisbane on Thursday that Smail Ayad was not criminally culpable for the knife attack at Home Hill in Queensland state because he had been suffering paranoid schizophrenia and thought local farmers and hostel staff were trying to kill him.
Ayad will be held in a mental health facility until he is sent to France.
U.S. attention to the tragedy intensified last year when the victims were included on a list of 78 global attacks that the White House said were "executed or inspired by" the Islamic State group and under-reported by the media.
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