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Another British backpacker dies after brutal attack in Australia

Xinhua, August 30, 2016 Adjust font size:

A British backpacker who was brutally attacked while trying to save the life of another traveller at a hostel in Australia's Queensland died on Tuesday.

Queensland police confirmed that Tom Jackson, 30, who had earlier been hailed as a hero for aiding another British national Mia Ayliffe-Chung has succumbed to his injuries and died at a Townsville Hospital, a week after the attack took place.

The 29-year-old attacker Frenchman Smail Ayad will be charged with two counts murder for Ayliffe-Chung and Jackson, one attempted murder charge on an unnamed man, 12 counts of assault against police officers and one count of animal cruelty for killing a dog.

Ayliffe-Chung, a 21-year-old backpacker who was killed in Queensland on Aug. 24, had captured media attention within Australia and abroad after it was alleged that her murderer Ayad had uttered the words "Allahu Akbar" (which means God is Great in Arabic) when stabbing the victims.

However, despite the utterance, Australian authorities were refusing to rule out terror motivations and were investigating the possibility that Ayad had become obsessed with the young British backpacker instead.

Investigations on to the incident were still ongoing with Ayad expected to have his next court appearance in Townsville on Oct 28.

Meanwhile, Ayliffe-Chung's mother has said that a passage from the Koran will be read out at her funeral.

Rosie Ayliffe said she was planning a multi-faith funeral for her daughter to celebrate her life and had decided to include a reading from the Koran in light of the media attention given to the religion of Mia's alleged killer Ayad.

"After talking about the misrepresentation of Mia's death in the media as an act of terrorism on the part of an Islamic fundamentalist, the minister delivering the service suggested we include a Koranic reading, and he will find something suitable with a friend who is an Islamic scholar," Ayliffe said in a blogpost she wrote for British news website The Independent. Endit