Police are yet to speak to the male nurse at the centre of a viral antisemitic video allegedly threatening to harm Israeli patients, as he is still receiving medical treatment.
NSW Police said on Wednesday that Sarah Abu Lebdeh – who worked at Bankstown-Lidcombe Hospital in Sydney’s south-west – had been charged with three Commonwealth offences.
They are threatening violence to a group, using a carriage service to threaten to kill and using a carriage service to menace, harass or offend.
The 26-year-old appeared alongside colleague Ahmed Rashid Nadir a fortnight ago in a video chat from the hospital with Israeli social media personality Max Veifer.
In the footage that was posted to TikTok and then went viral around the world, the duo allegedly brag about refusing to treat Israeli patients and killing them instead.
Officers from a police strike force investigating a spate of antisemitic incidents arrested Abu Lebdeh late on Tuesday.
Nadir is yet to be charged.
Later on Wednesday, NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb confirmed Nadir was still under investigation, but police were yet to speak to him.
She also confirmed further charges were likely.
He was taken to hospital for assessment a day before police were due to search hims home. It followed paramedics being called to his Bankstown home amid a “concern for welfare” report.
“I won’t go into that. We’ll just interview that individual at the right time. I don’t want to jeopardise the investigation or any other element,” Webb said.
Webb said the investigation was also complicated by “jurisdictional challenges” due to Veifer’s location.
“Given the nature of this offending – where we had two people here in NSW and the recording made overseas – it’s been a complex investigation. We’re talking across borders,” she told ABC radio.
There was no evidence patients at the hospital had actually been harmed, but the courts were best placed to decide the intent of the nurses’ comments, Webb said.
Nadir has previously said the incident was a “big mistake”, describing the comments as a joke gone wrong and apologising for any offence.
In the back and forth with Veifer, who revealed in the conversation on the Chatruletka platform that he previously served with the Israeli Defence Forces, Abu Lebdeh said: “One day, your time will come and you will die the most horrible death.”
The video drew widespread condemnation, including from Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and NSW Premier Chris Minns.
Australia’s health practitioner watchdog barred both nurses from working in the profession nationwide “in any context”, while the pair have also had their registrations suspended by the NSW Nursing and Midwifery Council.
Abu Lebdeh was granted conditional bail and is due to appear in court in March.
In the meantime, she has been banned from social media and from leaving Australia.
“[Abu Lebdeh] is on very, very strict bail conditions namely prohibiting her from going to a point of departure from Australia but more importantly banned from using social media,” NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb on Wednesday.
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-with AAP
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