Sydney Nurse Charged After Allegedly Threatening Patients In Video

A Sydney nurse involved in a viral social media video was charged on Tuesday evening, after allegedly threatening to kill Israeli patients.

The video was posted to social media by Israeli social media personality Max Veifer, talking to the nurses through random video call app Chatruletka, which similar to Chat Roulette.

In the edited video, Sarah Abu Lebdeh, 26, and her colleague at Bankstown-Lidcombe hospital, Ahmad Rashad Nadir, brag about refusing to treat Israeli patients and allegedly threaten to kill them.

Abu Lebdeh presented herself to Sutherland Police Station yesterday, where she was arrested and charged with three offences including threatening violence, using a carriage service to threaten to kill and using a carriage service to menace, harass or offend.

Nadir has not yet been charged but is under investigation, with police yet to speak with him.

He was taken to hospital for earlier in February after paramedics were called to his home in Bankstown following a “concern for welfare” report.

NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb said on Wednesday afternoon that the charges against Abu Lebdeh were “very, very serious”.

“She 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.”

Abu Lebdeh is due to appear in court in March.

Investigation spanned “across borders”

Commissioner Webb said the investigation was complex, and presented “jurisdictional challenges”, given that Veifer recorded the video from Israel.

“Given the nature of this offending, where we had two people here in New South Wales and the recording made overseas. It’s been a complex investigation given the nature of, we’re talking across borders,” she said.

“[There] has been a lot of work by investigators and support from overseas jurisdictions to get the statement from the influencer and have it converted to English and have it admissible in court.

“So not straight forward, and that’s why we’ve gone with commonwealth offences, through the advice of the Commonwealth DPP.”

Two weeks of investigations from Strike Force Pearl, dedicated to tackling antisemitism in New South Wales, had failed to find evidence of patients at the hospital being harmed, but independent investigations from NSW Health are still ongoing.

The NSW Nursing and Midwifery Council have suspended both nurses’ registrations, and Australia’s health practitioner watchdog has prohibited them from working nationwide “in any context”.