Jewish leader slams cops and politicians for dismissing anti-Semitic motive in ‘terror hoax’
Australia’s peak Jewish body has lashed police and political leaders for downplaying hatred as a motive for violent attacks, after revelations the alleged Mr Big has extreme anti-Semitic views.
Australia’s peak Jewish body has slammed police and politicians as “reckless and irresponsible” for dismissing anti-Semitism as a motivating factor behind a series of violent attacks, following revelations the alleged mastermind has a long history of extreme antiSemitic views.
In an unprecedented rebuke, Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-chief executive Alex Ryvchin said recent statements claiming the attacks were “unconnected to anti-Semitic ideology” had led to increased harassment and vilification of Jews.
“It has exposed dangerous failings by authorities, political leaders and public figures who chose to characterise the firebombings that hit Jewish targets as a hoax or con-job unconnected to anti-Semitic ideology and to do so before the investigation had been concluded,” he said.
On Friday The Australian revealed that Sayet Erhan Akca, the fugitive alleged to be behind the “terror caravan plot” and a string of arson and graffiti attacks on Jewish targets, had posted vile anti-Semitic slurs for years before fleeing Australia, after being charged with alleged drug importation offences.
On social media, the 35-year-old praised Hitler, questioned the existence of the Holocaust, said Zionists were “at the root of terrorism” and claimed 9/11 was an “inside job” to start a Muslim “massacre process”.
At a press conference on Monday police said the mastermind of the attacks – who they have still not publicly identified – was hoping to leverage a lenient court sentence by providing fabricated information to police about the explosives-laden caravan and the other attacks.
The attacks were carried out by low-level criminals and drug addicts who had no anti-Semitic views and were being led by criminals for personal gain, police said.
AFP Deputy Commissioner Krissy Barrett said the caravan plot “was never going to cause a mass-casualty event, but instead was concocted by criminals who wanted to cause fear for personal benefit.” Ms Barrett said “within hours” investigators had determined that it posed no threat, calling the incident a “criminal con job” and “fabricated terror plot”.
NSW Deputy Police Commissioner Dave Hudson was asked specifically: “You don’t have evidence that it is being driven by hate, you say it’s alleged that it’s organised crime?”
“Correct”, Mr Hudson replied.
Asked again to confirm that anti-Semitism was not an ideology “for anyone higher up, pulling strings”, Mr Hudson avoided a direct answer, simply stating that: “I think these organised crime figures have taken an opportunity to play on the vulnerability of the Jewish community.”
The police statements were used by Greens MPs and others to claim the attacks were “not motivated by anti-Semitism” and to demand hate-speech laws be repealed. However, in social media posts unearthed by The Australian, Akca posted a series of anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli slurs over a period of many years as he was building his gym business.
In one post Akca claims that “Hitler was only washing earth, they made him out to be evil”.
In another he asked: “How did 6 million die when only 3.2 registered Jews in Europe at the time?”
In response to a report that vandals targeted the Jewish community, spraying swastikas on cars, he responded: “Zeig heil.”
In 2022 he posted: “Why was no one this caring about Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya or Syria? Oh … cause western invasion is ok. But eastern is evil. There has never been a war, only a big guy bullying a small guy for self interest.”
Mr Ryvchin accepted that in some instances, authorities may have been trying to calm the community by downplaying or dismissing anti-Semitism as a motivating factor, “but the effect was the exact opposite”, he said.
“It set off a deluge of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories about ‘inside jobs’, and increased harassment and vilification of Jews. It also enabled some to pursue their self-serving agenda, ranging from shutting down discussion of the anti-Semitism crisis to undermining law reform and settling scores with political opponents.
“This has all diverted the discussion from how to keep Australians safe and reclaim our status as a peaceful country for all. We count on others to keep us safe, provide us with vital information and make statements that ease the crisis and not contribute to it. They need to do better.”
At a press conference on Friday, Anthony Albanese claimed the Australian Federal Police had “made it very clear, as have the police agencies, what the motivation of this was”.
“This is a criminal organisation seeking advantage, and whether that person, or people, involved also have hate towards Jewish people, it certainly created fear, as I’ve said, repeatedly.”
However, the Prime Minister had previously stated that “while it was a hoax and the motivation was about criminal activities and not related to those issues (anti-Semitism), the fear that it created was very real”.
Akca, who owned the now-closed Fitness Republic Cabramatta gym, was a prolific user of Facebook, posting dozens of pictures of himself, his then-wife Georgia – who is not accused of any wrongdoing – and his young son. Other images appear to show him praying at a mosque in Istanbul during a visit in 2018.
The 35-year-old has been living in Asia and Turkey since leaving Australia in mid-2023 while on bail over charges of attempting to import a commercial quantity of drugs using the encrypted AN0M messaging app.
As far back as 2016 Akca was posting claims that: “America gets caught funding $540M to produce ‘ISIS’ videos”. In December 2016 he posted “R.I.P. to all those innocents that have died in Aleppo and around the world in the hands of Terrorism, and I mean from the root of Terrorism, America and the Zionists … You still think 9/11 was not an inside job to start this money making and muslim massacre process, delete yourself now.”
The report that Akca was allegedly the caravan plot mastermind, first revealed in The Daily Telegraph, came as NSW Premier Chris Minns ruled out any repeal of hate speech laws passed last month, following revelations that several recent anti-Semitic attacks were orchestrated by a previously unnamed person with organised crime connections.
The NSW Greens on Wednesday claimed the attacks were “not motivated by anti-Semitism” and that the Minns government had “massively overreacted and jumped the gun with their kneejerk overreaching criminal laws”. “I expect the parliament will shortly be considering whether these unnecessary and reactive laws should be repealed, and so we should,” Greens MLC Sue Higginson said.
The NSW Council for Civil Liberties has also demanded an inquiry into whether Mr Minns “misled the parliament and public in order to pass the Places of Worship Bill and the Inciting Racial Hatred Bill”.
“The Minns Labor government has played right into the hands of those who concocted the caravan plot in using it to drive a repressive and fear-based legislative agenda that has further divided the community,” NSWCCL president Timothy Roberts said.
However, the Premier on Thursday reiterated that the legislation would not be repealed.
“Our laws criminalised intentionally and publicly inciting hatred towards another person, or group, based on race,” he said. “They send a clear message: the people of NSW stand together against inciting racial hatred.
“NSW has seen hundreds of anti-Semitic attacks and incidents. This racial hatred has caused our Jewish community to live in fear in their own state. While the caravan was part of a criminal conspiracy – and not the plot of a terrorist organisation – it was still appalling racial hatred.”
In simultaneous dawn raids on Monday, police arrested 14 people in relation to the vandalism and firebombing attacks – bringing the total number of arrests under the state police hate crimes unit to 29, with 143 charges laid.
The plot appears to span from an anti-Semitic vandalism attack in Woollahra in December to the discovery on January 19 of the explosives-laden caravan in Dural, northwest Sydney. However, no one has yet been charged in relation to the caravan plot.
Mr Minns had first labelled the caravan as a potential “mass-casualty event” and “terrorism”, both of which were ruled out by police in Monday’s press conference.
However, Mr Minns was adamant the conspiracy had targeted the Jewish community “to instil terror in our state”.
“In response to calls for the laws to be scrapped, doing so would be a toxic message to our community that this kind of hate speech is acceptable when it’s not,” he said.
It has also been revealed that former high-ranking Nomad bikie boss Sayed Moosawi was an alleged middleman known as “James Bond” who directed criminals for hire to firebomb a Bondi brewery they appeared to mistake for a Jewish kosher deli. After they realised they hit the wrong target, police allege Moosawi destroyed the deli himself. Moosawi has entered a not guilty plea.
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