Fairfax Media used a Facebook image of Abubakar Alam on the front pages of three publications on Thursday, wrongly identifying him as the 18-year-old shot dead by counter-terror police in Melbourne.
The known terror suspect stabbed an AFP officer a number of times on Tuesday evening, before twice stabbing a Victorian officer in the forearm. He was then shot dead by the officer.
The Age, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Canberra Times led their front page coverage of the incident with two images on the front page, one of the dead man and another of Mr Alam.
Speaking to SBS Radio's Pashto program, the Year 12 student said he was scared to leave the house after being incorrectly identified.
“I’m really scared,” he said.
“I can’t go anywhere. I haven’t been out all day. I can’t do work, I’ve cancelled my shift. I don’t know when I’ll be back at school and work.
“I’ve had such a good name as a student, as a worker… It’s a terrible thing to happen.”
Mr Alam said he didn’t believe the news when friends informed him of the error, but his disbelief soon turned to anger.
“I was really shocked,” he said.
“I told my dad and my whole family was really angry, upset for accusing my family. For the bad image which we’ve never had.”
Mr Alam’s grandfather had moved to Australia from Afghanistan, but returned to help coordinate efforts against the Taliban.
He was later killed by a suicide bomber in 2006.
Mr Alam said incidents such as this were what his family had moved to Australia to avoid.
“My granddad, he came from Afghanistan to live a peaceful life,” he said.
“… We came here to have a better life, better future and not be known as terrorists.”
Fairfax Media has since published an apology on its website, “unreservedly” apologising and pulling the image from its websites.
Posted just after midday, the statement read that “the young man has no connection whatsoever with any extremist or terrorist group”.
“We deeply regret any such inference arising from the publication of the photograph,” it read.
“The picture has been withdrawn from circulation.”
However Mr Alam said he is yet to hear anything personally from the publisher.
“Sorry is just the start,” he said. "Our status in the community was really high. So now it's all been tarnished... in order to fix that is going to take time."
Mr Alam said he was considering taking legal action against the newspaper group.
