A RIVERINA teenager has been arrested after he allegedly stabbed a service station employee to death in Queanbeyan during a potentially Islamic State-inspired rampage.
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Counter-terrorism police are trawling social media pages of a 17-year-old boy from Young — who was on Friday arrested along with a 15-year-old alleged accomplice.
The teen appeared in the ACT Magistrates Court at 3pm on Friday, represented by Wagga solicitor David Barron, who spoke using a telephone hook-up.
While the Young local has not yet been charged, a forensic procedure application which nominated him as a suspect for murder and attempted murder was granted.
He and the 15-year-old have also been accused of bashing a man with a tyre iron during a home invasion, hitting another man with a beer bottle and stabbing a third victim in the stomach.
It has also been revealed the letters “IS” were sprawled in blood on the window of the Caltex service station, where 29-year-old attendant Zeeshan Akbar was killed.
CCTV from inside the store captured the horrific attack and allegedly showed the Young teenager smashing his way through the front window with a cash register in hand.
Fairfax Media understands the mother of one of the boys told detectives she feared her son had been radicalised, but any obvious links to religious extremism are yet to be confirmed.
Former Wagga crime manager and now Monaro superintendent Rod Smith revealed the second stabbing victim was taken to Canberra Hospital in a serious but stable condition.
He described the night's events as "horrific".
"It doesn't need to be said, but it doesn't get more serious than this," he said.
"It's an absolutely horrific series of events, and we'd just like to reassure everybody that there are two people that we believe are involved, and both of those people are currently in custody."
A witness to the second stabbing told police the offenders escaped in a silver Ford Falcon.
Soon after, police began chasing the car, which crossed from Queanbeyan into the ACT.
"That pursuit finished shortly after, with both of those offenders being arrested without incident," Superintendent Smith said.
Alan Webber, the owner of the Caltex store where the fatal stabbing took place, said he was shocked by the crime and "sincerely and desperately sorry" for the families involved.
The 17-year-old Young teenager is currently being held in custody at a juvenile detention centre in the ACT.
NSW Police may apply for his extradition on Saturday.
