{"id":905160,"date":"2026-09-25T16:26:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-25T16:26:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/905160\/"},"modified":"2026-09-25T16:26:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-25T16:26:10","slug":"sydney-man-becomes-first-jailed-under-nazi-salute-laws","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/905160\/","title":{"rendered":"Sydney man becomes first jailed under Nazi salute laws"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Sydney man has been jailed for performing a Nazi salute and publishing offensive online posts under new mandatory minimum sentencing laws.<\/p>\n

Nathan Ballesty was arrested in December after the Australian Federal Police (AFP) launched an investigation into a post in which he called for Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to be kidnapped.<\/p>\n

After searching his home on Sydney’s Northern Beaches, authorities found Nazi paraphernalia, including a uniform and a copy of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf, and seized his electronic devices.<\/p>\n

Among the content found on his devices were violent messages aimed at Mr Albanese and Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke, and a recording of a video call in which he performed a Nazi salute.<\/p>\n

\"Tony<\/p>\n

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. (ABC News: Matt Roberts)<\/p>\n

Ballesty pleaded guilty to performing a Nazi salute, as well as six counts of using a carriage service to menace, harass or offend and one count of contravening a police order after he refused to provide investigators with his device passwords for weeks.<\/p>\n

On Friday, he was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment \u2014 including a non-parole period of 18 months \u2014 backdated to January, when he was first remanded into custody.<\/p>\n

The sentence includes a mandatory minimum of 12 months’ imprisonment for performing a Nazi salute, making Ballesty the first person to be sentenced under the laws introduced in February 2025.<\/p>\n

He will be eligible for parole in May 2027.<\/p>\n

Ballesty’s parents provided a letter of support for their son, detailing his lifelong struggle with mental health issues and social isolation and describing him as a kind, gentle and empathetic person.<\/p>\n

New laws to combat neo-Nazis in NSW after parliament rally<\/a><\/p>\n

Police and courts will be given greater powers to combat public displays of Nazi ideology in NSW following a rally outside state parliament earlier this month.<\/p>\n

They expressed that they wished they had been faster to recognise the risks associated with allowing their son to grow increasingly dependent on the internet.<\/p>\n

His parents also noted Ballesty had embraced Christianity while in prison, and claimed he was “deeply remorseful and determined to live according to the values of his faith”.<\/p>\n

A letter in which Ballesty admitted to making serious errors and breaking the law, and apologised for causing offence, was also shared with the court.<\/p>\n

Judge Mahony said while he accepted Ballesty was remorseful, the testimonials about his character were difficult to reconcile with the nature of his crimes.<\/p>\n

AAP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Sydney man has been jailed for performing a Nazi salute and publishing offensive online posts under new…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":905161,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,29180,473243,111810,473244,78249,44,25261,670],"class_list":["post-905160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-hate-speech","tag-nathan-ballesty","tag-nazi-salute","tag-nazi-salute-laws","tag-neo-nazi","tag-news","tag-northern-beaches","tag-sydney"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/905160","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=905160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/905160\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/905161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=905160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=905160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=905160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}