London - The man who killed a British backpacker predicted his own death moments before his Outback hostel attack.
Smail Ayad, 29, posted online that he was the victim of an international plot and was ‘going to die’.
He then screamed Allahu Akbar – God is great – while stabbing 20-year-old Mia Ayliffe-Chung in front of terrified fellow travellers.
The kickboxing champion had become entranced with the young Briton who was doing a three-month stint on a farm. Police are examining suggestions that he was obsessed with model and TV star Arianny Celeste, who bears a startling resemblance to his victim.
They have ruled out terrorism.
Ayad is said to have told other guests at the Queensland hostel where they were staying that he and Ayliffe-Chung were ‘deeply in love’.
The Frenchman apparently became outraged when he discovered she had posed for nearly nude photographs and did not return his affections.
After the attack, Ayad jumped off a second-floor balcony, covered in blood.
He lashed out at police officers and had to be wrestled to the ground and handcuffed. He then bit a detective in the leg in the police van on the way to the station and had to be subdued using pepper spray and a Taser. Twelve officers are said to have been injured.
After being charged with murder, two counts of attempted murder and 12 counts of serious assault, he was due to make a court appearance on Friday by videolink from custody.
Moments before the attack, Ayad posted on Facebook: ‘I am the victim of an international economic plot. I think that I am going to die. Those who love me, follow me. I love you all.’
John Norris, owner of Shelley’s Backpackers, where the attack took place, said Ayad had become deeply entranced and infatuated with Ayliffe-Chung since her arrival at the remote hostel last week, following her around.
He said Ayad’s behaviour had changed on the day of the frenzied attack, adding: ‘He said something about his mother over in France, that he may have to go home and look after her.’
The hostel’s manager, Grant Scholz, 46, who was also stabbed in the rampage and has more than 100 stitches, said he had nicknamed Ayad ‘Smiley’.
‘He’s the last person I expected to do anything like that,’ he told Australian television. Ayliffe-Chung’s parents were understood to be making arrangements on Thursday to fly out to Australia and bring her body home.
After completing a childcare course at college she had left her home in Cromford, Derbyshire, last summer to go backpacking, following in the footsteps of her teacher mother Rosie, 53, a guidebook author.
She arrived in Australia earlier this year and settled in Surfers Paradise on the Gold Coast, working as a waitress at a raunchy nightclub called The Bedroom.
But she had to travel 800 miles north to work on a farm for three months to extend her visa and had moved to the remote town of Home Hill. Ayliffe-Chung had told her mother she was having ‘the time of her life’ during a phone call home just hours before she died.
Shortly before midnight on Tuesday, police were called to the hostel as residents reported hearing screaming.
They found Ayad covered in blood and brandishing a knife. His victim had suffered multiple stab wounds to her face and body after being dragged from her bunk bed.
A second British backpacker, Thomas Jackson, who is a 30-year-old charity worker from Congleton in Cheshire, had also been stabbed repeatedly.
Daily Mail