Australian nurses who threatened to murder Israelis suffer major setback in trial

Australian appeals court reinstates video in trial of ex-nurses accused of threatening to murder Israelis.

By World Israel News Staff

An Australian appeals court has ruled that prosecutors may use a viral video allegedly showing two former Sydney nurses threatening Israeli patients, overturning a lower-court decision that excluded the footage because it was recorded without their consent.

The New South Wales Court of Criminal Appeal set aside the earlier ruling Friday and declared the unedited audiovisual recording admissible at the coming trial of Sarah Abu Lebdeh, 27, and Ahmad Rashad Nadir, 28. Both formerly worked at Bankstown-Lidcombe Hospital in western Sydney.

Abu Lebdeh and Nadir have pleaded not guilty to using a communications service to menace, harass or offend. Abu Lebdeh has also pleaded not guilty to threatening violence against a group. Their trial is scheduled to begin August 31.

The charges arose from a February 2025 conversation on the random video-chat platform Chatruletka with Israeli content creator Max Veifer, whose legal name is Max Ilinsky. The two nurses were at the hospital and wearing medical clothing during the exchange. Veifer recorded the conversation from Israel and later published portions of it online.

In the footage, Abu Lebdeh allegedly said that she would refuse to provide care to Israeli patients.

“I won’t treat them. I will kill them,” she said in the video.

Nadir allegedly claimed he had harmed Israelis who came to the hospital.

“You have no idea how many [Israelis] came to this hospital, and I sent them to Jahannam,” he said, using the Arabic word for hell. “I literally sent them to Jahannam.”

No evidence was subsequently found that either nurse had harmed patients at Bankstown-Lidcombe Hospital. The hospital reviewed patient records after the video emerged, while police and health authorities conducted separate investigations.

The case’s immediate focus, however, has been whether the recording itself was obtained lawfully and could be presented to a jury.

In June, New South Wales District Court Judge Michael McHugh ruled that the footage had to be excluded. Lawyers for the former nurses argued that the conversation was private and that recording it without their knowledge violated state surveillance laws.

“Ultimately, I have come to the firm view that all the video evidence must be excluded from each of the trials of the applicants,” McHugh said at the time.

The judge said the comments were, on their face, “highly disturbing to right-minded people everywhere,” but emphasized that whether the prosecution could prove the alleged offenses beyond a reasonable doubt was a separate question for a jury.

Abu Lebdeh welcomed the initial ruling outside court.

“I’m thankful for everyone that supported me, my friends and my family and my lawyer,” she said.

Her attorney, Rayan Kadadi, argued that there had been insufficient evidence to prosecute her and said she had suffered severe personal and professional consequences since the video’s publication.

The Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions appealed, arguing that the recording was made in Israel rather than New South Wales and therefore did not violate the Australian state’s surveillance law.

“Mr. Ilinsky was sitting in Israel at the time of the conversation,” prosecutor Paul Holdenson KC told the appeals court. “His computer was with him in Israel.”

Defense barrister Peter Lange SC countered that the conversation was also captured through the nurses’ microphone inside the Sydney hospital.

“What was used was the microphone in the room at the hospital … in order to capture the sound,” Lange said. “The conversation may also have been in Israel … but it is also in New South Wales.”

Prosecutors said witness testimony alone would not allow jurors to fully evaluate the words, gestures, expressions and tone displayed during the exchange.

“The jury can only do that if the jury can see and hear what was said … and the tone and manner in which it was said, together with any hand gestures and expressions,” Holdenson said.

“Without the video … the crown case is indeed very, very much weakened.”

During an earlier hearing, an attorney for Nadir characterized the recorded exchange as “stupid things said by stupid people,” while accusing Veifer of deliberately seeking provocative encounters for publication on social media.

“This man is running, in effect, vigilante activity,” Greg James KC said. “He’s seeking to draw out the opinions. Having succeeded in drawing them out, he’s not protecting himself from them, he’s capitalizing on them.”

The Court of Criminal Appeal nevertheless ruled that both the unedited recording and Ilinsky’s testimony could be used at trial. The panel consisted of Justices Anthony Payne and James Emmett and Chief Judge at Common Law Natalie Adams.

The court supplied its reasons to the parties, but they cannot yet be published while the judges consider which portions should be covered by suppression or non-publication orders.

The video triggered nationwide condemnation when it appeared online in February 2025. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called it “sickening and shameful,” while then-federal health minister Mark Butler said the comments and “the hatred that underpins them” had no place in Australia’s health system.

“Australians have a right to feel safe wherever they go and nowhere should be safer than a hospital,” Butler said.

The Nursing and Midwifery Council of New South Wales suspended both nurses’ registrations, preventing them from practicing anywhere in Australia. They were also dismissed from their hospital positions and later barred for two years from working with participants in Australia’s National Disability Insurance Scheme.

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