{"id":515617,"date":"2026-03-03T08:44:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T08:44:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/515617\/"},"modified":"2026-03-03T08:44:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T08:44:09","slug":"teenager-pleads-guilty-to-threatening-to-kill-prime-minister-nsw-premier-on-social-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/515617\/","title":{"rendered":"Teenager pleads guilty to threatening to kill Prime Minister, NSW Premier on social media"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Western Australian teenager has admitted threatening to kill the prime minister and the New South Wales premier on social media, although he says he did not mean it.<\/p>\n

Will James King, 19, was charged after he made the threat in a direct message sent to NSW Premier Chris Minns’ Instagram account on January 14.<\/p>\n

“You’re a Jew, not a real Semite,” the message, which was read out in the Mandurah Magistrates Court today, said.<\/p>\n

“I’ll assassinate you and Albo and the country will be a better place.”<\/p>\n

Detectives from WA’s State Security Investigations team went to King’s Meadow Springs home, 70 kilometres south of Perth, the next day and arrested him.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and NSW Premier Chris Minns pictured together. (AAP: Sitthixay Ditthavong)<\/p>\n

The court heard King told police he “didn’t mean for it to be a threat” and was not actually going to do anything.<\/p>\n

“Seeing the news annoyed me,” King had told them, though it was not made clear in court what he was referring to.<\/p>\n

‘Error in judgement’<\/p>\n

Defence lawyer Tendayi Chivunga said her client had never committed a crime before, was not racist and was extremely remorseful.<\/p>\n

She told the court he was going through a “dark and depressing” time, struggling with the separation of his parents, when he made an “error in judgement”.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Will King (left, getting into car) leaves court in Mandurah, flanked by supporters. (ABC News: David Weber)<\/p>\n

“He’d been reading a lot of political stuff online,” Ms Chivunga said.<\/p>\n

“A lot of volatility in the articles he’d been digesting alone.<\/p>\n

“There was a lot happening in Australia at the time.”<\/p>\n

At the time, the country’s news agenda was dominated by the aftermath of the Bondi Beach massacre targeting Jewish people<\/a>, which happened exactly a month earlier on December 14.<\/p>\n

‘Honest mistake’<\/p>\n

In court today, Ms Chivunga said King “was in a dark, dark place” and did not understand the gravity of the messages he sent.<\/p>\n

She told the court there was not a lot of “planning or thought” in the messages.<\/p>\n

She said King did not hide who he was and if he had intended to “follow through”, he would have used a pseudonym.<\/p>\n

The defence lawyer asked for a spent conviction.<\/p>\n

“He’s made an honest mistake, he’s fallen on his sword,” she told the court.<\/p>\n

But the police prosecutor said it was a very serious offence, and imprisonment should be the “starting point”.<\/p>\n

Radicalisation question<\/p>\n

Magistrate Clare Cullen asked if King had been radicalised, and Ms Chivunga said it “may have been momentary”.<\/p>\n

The magistrate ordered a psychological report, saying she wanted to know “whether he presents any ongoing risk to the Australian community”.<\/p>\n

King will return to court on June 26.<\/p>\n

Loading<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Western Australian teenager has admitted threatening to kill the prime minister and the New South Wales premier…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":515618,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[2324,64,63,48,257837,257838,257840,257841,257844,44,14666,86,257843,1158,6895,1314,51905,257842,257839,5324,45,257836],"class_list":{"0":"post-515617","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-australia","8":"tag-anthony-albanese","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-crime","12":"tag-death-threat-against-pm","13":"tag-death-threat-anthony-albanese-chris-minns","14":"tag-man-charged-with-threatening-to-kill-prime-minister","15":"tag-mandurah-magistrates-court","16":"tag-new-south-wales-premier-chris-minns","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-perth-courts","19":"tag-perth-news","20":"tag-perth-terror","21":"tag-police","22":"tag-prime-minister","23":"tag-social-media","24":"tag-terror","25":"tag-terror-accused","26":"tag-threaten-to-kill","27":"tag-threats","28":"tag-wa-news","29":"tag-will-james-king"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=515617"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515617\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/515618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=515617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=515617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=515617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}