POLICE identified the assailant today who stabbed and killed six people at a busy Sydney shopping centre before a police officer fatally shot him.

New South Wales (NSW) Police said that Joel Cauchi, 40, was responsible for the Saturday afternoon attack at the Westfield Shopping Centre in Bondi Junction, in the city’s eastern suburbs and not far from the world-famous Bondi Beach.

NSW Assistant Police Commissioner Anthony Cooke told reporters at a media conference today that Cauchi suffered from yet unspecified mental health issues and police investigators weren’t treating the attack as terrorism-related.