A 17-year-old boy from Melbourne has been charged with the alleged stabbing murder of a 25-year-old man, also from Victoria, in Adelaide’s CBD on Monday morning.

Key points:

  • A man died in Adelaide’s CBD after allegedly being stabbed in the chest on Monday morning
  • Police say there were several confrontations between gangs
  • A 17-year-old about to fly to Melbourne was charged with murder last night

Three other Victorians were also arrested before they could fly to Melbourne.

The victim was found with multiple stab wounds to his chest before he died in North Terrace about 2am.

Police have arrested a total of 17 people in relation to the incident, which authorities believe was the result of ongoing fighting between two youth gangs from Adelaide’s northern suburbs. 

Acting Assistant Police Commissioner John De Candia is in charge of Operation Meld, a taskforce set up to investigate the violence.

They face a range of charges, including weapons offences.

The man charged with murder is from Meadow Heights, in Melbourne’s north.

He has also been charged with aggravated affray and travelling under a false name.

Police take one of the charged man from a hotel on Franklin Street to the City Watch House on Monday.(ABC News: Shari Hams)

Another 18-year-old Victorian man was charged with aggravated affray and travelling under a false name, while a 21-year-old from Werribee and a 16-year-old from St Albans were both charged with aggravated affray.

All four were refused bail and will appear in the Adelaide Magistrates Court today, along with the 13 others.

SA Police has called for the public to come forward with any witness accounts or footage of incidents police were not aware of.

Police focus on ‘criminality’ not ethnicity

Acting Assistant Commissioner De Candia emphasised that while the two groups mainly comprised of Sudanese youths, police were not seeking to marginalise the community.

“Importantly our focus has always been on the criminality,” he said.

“The community well and truly doesn’t want this to occur.”

South Sudanese-Australian lawyer and activist Maker Mayek said South Australia had “the opportunity to deal with this in an objective matter”, which he said would be a contrast to the politicisation of so-called “youth gangs” in Victoria in 2018.

“The authorities ought to give clear messaging, which is fantastic from what I’ve heard from the Assistant Commissioner, that there are young people committing crimes,” he said.

“Our community, across the country, will not tolerate young people that are committing crimes.”

Posted , updated