Melbourne police closing in on Adass Israel arson suspects

Five months after Melbourne’s Adass Israel Synagogue was firebombed in December, police in the Australian city say they have made a major breakthrough that may help them find and arrest those responsible.

A blue Volkswagen Golf 2020 sedan was identified on camera as the getaway car following that attack, in which two masked men torched a synagogue founded by Holocaust survivors shortly before dawn on December 6.

Police say that the car is a stolen vehicle that had been used in other offenses around the same time, including an arson and shooting that occurred in a Melbourne suburb the same night as the synagogue attack, as well as a fire set at a nightclub in November 2024.

The Golf, which had cloned number plates, was seized by police last year, police say.

On Thursday, police apprehended two suspects accused of the nightclub arson, both of whom had used the car. While there is no indication that the two were involved with the synagogue fire, investigators sense that they are getting closer to finding the suspects, they say.

The Victorian Joint Counter Terrorism Team (JCTT) releases footage of the attack and asked members of the public with knowledge of the crime to come forward.