Australia eyes possible foreign role in antisemitic attacks

Australian police are looking into whether foreign actors have paid local criminals to commit antisemitic offenses after a series of attacks on sites associated with the country's Jewish community, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Wednesday.

The crimes have included torching a child care center, burning cars in largely Jewish neighborhoods and smearing red paint and graffiti on synagogues in Sydney, while a synagogue in Melbourne was firebombed in December, injuring one person.

The two southeastern cities are home to 84% of the country's Jewish population of around 117,000.

What are police investigating?

Albanese said some of the attacks appeared to have been motivated by financial gain rather than any ideological rationale.

"Some of these are being perpetrated by people who don't have a particular issue, aren't motivated by an idealogy, but are paid actors," he said.

"It's unclear who or where the payments are coming from," he added.

Australian Federal Police Commissioner Reece Kershaw said detectives were probing whether the attacks had been funded with money from other countries.

"We are looking into whether overseas actors or individuals have paid local criminals in Australia to carry out some of these crimes in our suburbs," he said.

"Part of our inquiries include: Who is paying those criminals, where those people are, whether they are in Australia or offshore, and what their motivation is," Kershaw added.

Neither Albanese nor the police offered any details on what evidence had led to the current suspicion of foreign involvement.

On Wednesday, police charged a 33-year-old man with trying to set a Sydney synagogue on fire in January, while eight people were charged on Tuesday with a string of "hate crime-related incidents" dating back to November, police said.

tj/sms (AFP, AP)