Overview

• Investigators maintain that the December 6 firebombing of Ripponlea’s Adass Israel Synagogue was politically motivated and still under terrorism investigation.
• The Victorian Joint Counter Terrorism Team has charged a 20-year-old Williamstown man with stealing the blue VW Golf used in the attack.
• Police identified the Golf as a “communal crime car” with cloned plates and linked it to a Bundoora drive-by shooting and the Lux Nightclub arson in South Yarra.
• June raids yielded no arrests and encrypted crime-for-hire networks continue to thwart efforts to identify those who ordered or carried out the firebombing.
• Federal and Victorian governments have committed over $31 million to rebuild the synagogue and strengthen its security.