In late January, Australians were convulsed out of their summer holiday torpor by what appeared to be an elaborate anti-Semitic terror plot. Following a series of vandalism and firebomb attacks on synagogues, and cars and private property in suburbs with significant Jewish populations, details of the New South Wales police’s discovery of a caravan laden with plastic explosive were leaked to the media.
This caravan was found parked in a street on Sydney’s rural fringe. The explosive had no detonators, but reportedly was accompanied by plans of Sydney’s Great Synagogue, which is located in a busy and narrow city centre street that would have magnified greatly the destruction and casualties caused by any blast.
Naturally, state and federal police and anti-terrorism units took the discovery as evidence of a potential terrorist attack. When it emerged that the New South Wales state premier, Chris Minns was briefed by his police commissioner, but Australia’s prime minister, Anthony Albanese, wasn’t by his own security services, there was a national political furore about the country’s state of anti-terrorist readiness, and Albanese was flayed by opposition leaders for his failure to be across the situation and in control of the response.
The prime minister’s prior ignorance, however, did not stop Australian Federal Police commissioner, Reece Kershaw, sensationally telling state premiers and the media that the caravan plot, and other anti-Semitic incidents, could have been orchestrated by ‘overseas actors’, and that he was engaging with Five Eyes intelligence partners to investigate the possibility.
Meanwhile, Minns used the discovery as a justification for rushing tough new anti-Semitism and hate speech laws through his parliament, angering Islamic community leaders and rabidly anti-Israel Green MPs on the one hand, and free speech advocates on the other.
Only now it has emerged that the ‘terror caravan’ was fake news. It was a hoax, leaving many politicians, police and security officials, and journalists with very red faces.
When Kershaw raised the possibility of overseas actors being involved in January, speculation was rife that he was implying the likes of Hamas, Hezbollah or Iran’s hardline Islamist regime were behind the supposed plot and other anti-Semitic crimes. The truth, however, is very different and much closer to home.
The alleged hoaxer is a man named Sayet Erhan Acka, a Sydney businessman who had legitimate gym and childcare centre business interests, but with a criminal sideline. Authorities believe that in mid-2023, Acka fled Australia by boat while on bail for an alleged 600-kilogram drug importation, but from his overseas hiding place allegedly concocted and coordinated the ‘terror caravan’ plot. It is being alleged that Acka masterminded the caravan’s discovery to play an Islamic community supergrass, tipping off police of a possible terrorist attack in the hope of being rewarded by a lesser charge, a more lenient sentence, or both, and being free to return from being on the run to rejoin his wife and child in Sydney.
‘We believe the person pulling the strings wanted changes to their criminal status but maintained a distance from their scheme and hired local criminals to carry out parts of their plan. However, the plan was foiled’, said Australian Federal Police deputy commissioner, Krissy Barrett.
This embarrassing episode does not prove that anti-Semitism in Australia is a chimera
But, as police investigations delved deeper into Acka’s activities, they obtained evidence that the alleged drug importer also has been involved in a string of anti-Semitic attacks in Sydney over December and January that have struck fear into the city’s Jewish community, and reported worldwide. These included the firebombing of a suburban childcare centre close to a synagogue, and vile anti-Semitic messages and swastikas daubed on cars and homes, including the former home of a high-profile Jewish community leader.
NSW Police’s Deputy Commissioner Dave Hudson said police believe all the anti-Semitic attacks in the city since December ‘link back to the same common source’.
The Australian newspaper is reporting that Acka has a history of posting vicious anti-Semitic slurs online, but it appears the Muslim man exploited Australia’s deepening anti-Semitism crisis to save his own miserable criminal hide. If he can be extradited home, he faces life in prison if convicted of commercial-scale drug trafficking. Adding his concocting a terror hoax, and instigating a wave of terror in Sydney, will ensure Acka stays behind bars for many years – if only he can be caught and extradited. Acka is still on the run, reported to be in Turkey or Asia, and Australian authorities aren’t confident of bringing him in anytime soon. Presumably, Acka is hiding somewhere in the Islamic world, where he would feel safest.
This embarrassing episode does not prove that anti-Semitism in Australia is a chimera, exaggerated for political purposes. Instead, it highlights how easy it is for twisted and criminal persons to tap the vein of Jew hate that, shamefully, very much exists in what is supposed to be the most harmoniously multicultural nation on earth. In forcing red-faced Australian authorities to lift their game and improve their anti-terror teamwork, this alleged drug kingpin inadvertently has done Australia a favour.
