A person of interest has been named as police investigate a suspected arson attack on a car donning a celebratory Hanukkah sign, parked outside a rabbi’s home.
Victorian police are hoping to speak with 47-year-old John Argento following early investigations which suggested he may be able to assist.
Officers released a photo of Mr Argento on Friday after a car with a billboard celebrating Hanukkah was set alight outside a rabbi’s house early on Christmas day.
No one was inside the vehicle at the time but a woman and three children were evacuated from the house as a precaution.
“We understand the devastating impact this type of offence has on our Jewish community and we are continuing to prioritise this investigation,” Assistant Police Commissioner Chris Gilbert said.
“We won’t fully understand the motives of this arsonist until we get them into custody.”
Though police are attempting to contact Mr Argento, they say there is no indication he poses a specific risk to the Jewish community.
They also want to talk to him about a car that was broken into about 20 minutes after the alleged arson attack.
Mr Argento lives a transient lifestyle and is known to frequent Melbourne’s inner southern and northern suburbs.
He is 185cm tall, is thin and has blue eyes, grey hair and a fair complexion.
Australian Federal Police on Friday also charged an 18-year-old who allegedly performed Nazi salutes and put up “propaganda-style” stickers on public buildings.
The man was allegedly putting up Nationalist Socialist Network stickers at a Canberra shopping centre when confronted by a member of the public in October.
He is accused of then performing a Nazi salute before leaving the building.
The man is also said to have trespassed at the Australian National University multiple times in August to put up the stickers and performed another Nazi salute at a different shopping centre on December 12.
Police searched a Weston home on Christmas Eve and seized multiple devices and different types of stickers that read “white man fight back” and other racist slogans.
“Anti-Semitism is a cancer, it is something that needs to be dealt with and removed from Australian society,” Australian Federal Police assistant commissioner Stephen Nutt said.
The man has been charged with trespassing and defacing commonwealth property, and performing Nazi salutes in public, which carries a punishment of up to five years in prison.
This comes two months after a neo-Nazi assembly outside NSW parliament and less than a fortnight after Islamic State-inspired gunmen opened fire at a Hanukkah event at Bondi Beach, killing 15 people.
The alleged arson was designed to frighten Jews for being visibly Jewish, Zionist Federation of Australia president Jeremy Leibler said.
“After Bondi, and with the number of recent threats and investigations around the country, Australia has to treat anti-Semitism as a public safety issue, not a niche community concern,” he said.
A federal royal commission or an equivalent national inquiry with real powers into the Bondi attack and wider anti-Semitism crisis is the only way the nation can get the truth, accountability and lasting reform, Mr Leibler said.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the apparent firebombing was “beyond comprehension”.
But he has resisted calling a royal commission in the wake of the Bondi mass shooting, instead backing a NSW inquiry and prioritising a faster but more limited review of intelligence and law enforcement agencies.
Hate speech reforms and an overhaul of ministerial powers to cancel or reject visas for sowing division or potentially inciting violence are also on the agenda.
The Victorian government has promised to follow NSW’s footsteps to crack down on hate crimes and grant police the power to veto protests after designated terror attacks.
NSW Police late on Christmas Eve moved to ban protest rallies from key metropolitan areas in Sydney following the December 14 Bondi attack.
Australian Associated Press is the beating heart of Australian news. AAP is Australia’s only independent national newswire and has been delivering accurate, reliable and fast news content to the media industry, government and corporate sector for 85 years. We keep Australia informed.
