Possession Of Child Abuse Material Accessed Using Carriage Service Laws

Ali Alghamdi, a 35-year-old Saudi national and PhD student at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), has been arrested and charged with accessing child abuse material. Alghamdi, who recently moved his wife and two young children to Sydney, was detained by sex crimes detectives at the UNSW campus in Randwick. Authorities allege he possessed more than 25,000 images and videos of child abuse, including material involving infants as young as two years old.

The material was reportedly found on encrypted messaging apps and across three email accounts, with one account alone containing nearly 650 gigabytes of illegal content. Forty-two files had been marked as favourites. When questioned, Alghamdi initially claimed he was unaware of the material and later stated he had downloaded it to report it to authorities.