{"id":34385,"date":"2026-06-19T06:04:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-19T06:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/34385\/"},"modified":"2026-06-19T06:04:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T06:04:09","slug":"man-who-falsely-claimed-to-have-ak-47-at-brisbane-mosque-escapes-criminal-conviction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/34385\/","title":{"rendered":"Man who falsely claimed to have AK-47 at Brisbane mosque escapes criminal conviction"},"content":{"rendered":"

A man who admitted to falsely claiming to be armed with an assault rifle and threatening worshippers at a Brisbane Mosque last month says he is “absolutely remorseful”.<\/p>\n

Louis Rapisarda pleaded guilty in the Brisbane Magistrates Court this morning to disturbing the peace at a place of worship and creating a public nuisance.<\/p>\n

The court heard on the morning of May 10, while driving past Mitchelton Presbyterian Church, he yelled out “Allahu Akbar” to a group of people gathered outside.<\/p>\n

He then drove to the Masjid Taqwah Mosque in Bald Hills and shouted the Arabic phrase again at members inside, before telling them he had an AK-47, the court heard.<\/p>\n

\"mosque<\/p>\n

The mosque is located in Bald Hills, in Brisbane’s north. (ABC News: Crystalyn Brown)<\/p>\n

His lawyers submitted Rapisarda had a bipolar diagnosis but was unmedicated at the time which caused manic episodes.<\/p>\n

The incident was described to the court as being out of character for Rapisarda, who had no relevant criminal history.<\/p>\n

A magistrate ordered Rapisarda to complete 60 hours of community service but did not record convictions.<\/p>\n

Outside court Mr Rapisarda said he was “absolutely remorseful”.<\/p>\n

“I’d like to thoroughly apologise to the Muslim community,” he said.<\/p>\n

“I regret my actions.”<\/p>\n

Queensland police investigating Nazi symbol graffitied on mosque<\/a><\/p>\n

Offensive words were also written on the Brisbane mosque, along with the swastika. WARNING: The following story contains an image of a Nazi symbol.<\/p>\n

In a statement, Chairman of the mosque Mohammed Akbery said the Muslim community in Bald Hills was left “shaken” and concerned for their safety by the incident.<\/p>\n

“Heated rhetoric has real consequences for communities,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Our members are ordinary Australians and should never feel unsafe at their place of worship.”<\/p>\n

“Attempts to direct frustration or political grievances towards ordinary Muslim Australians are both unfair and misplaced.”<\/p>\n

Mr Akbery said he understood Rapisarda was “facing his own challenges” and it was hoped the experience would lead him to “reflection, understanding and a positive path forward”.<\/p>\n

“While the actions were deeply concerning, this has also been a reminder that fear, misinformation and division can affect people in different ways,” he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man who admitted to falsely claiming to be armed with an assault rifle and threatening worshippers at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":34386,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[13298,30128,99,30125,30127,30126,10456,8796,211,212],"class_list":["post-34385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brisbane","tag-ak-47","tag-bald-hills","tag-brisbane","tag-louis-rapisarda","tag-masjid-taqwah-mosque","tag-mitchelton-presbyterian-church","tag-mosque","tag-muslim","tag-qld","tag-queensland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34385"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34385\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}