Victorian Police say ‘a communal crime car’ used by arsonists in a synagogue terrorist attack has been linked to a massive blaze that gutted a Melbourne nightclub.
00:00Police have charged a 22-year-old man from Pakenham in Melbourne's southeast with a number of offences including criminal damage by fire and theft of a motor vehicle over that huge blaze that tore through the Lux nightclub in South Yarra in Melbourne's inner southeast in November last year.
00:20And he is due to appear in the Melbourne Magistrates' Court today. Police also arrested a 21-year-old man but have released him pending further enquiries.
00:31Now at the time of that Lux nightclub fire police say there was a stolen blue VW Golf that was seen in the area.
00:40It's the same car that was also spotted at a drive-by shooting and arson attack in Melbourne's east in December just hours before it was also seen at an arson attack on the Adas Israel synagogue in Riponlea in Melbourne's southeast.
00:59Now that has been declared a terrorist attack and police say that there is nothing to indicate that these two men were in any way connected to that synagogue attack.
01:09Nor was the Lux nightclub arson attack believed to be politically motivated. In fact a motive still hasn't been established for it.
01:17However police have released CCTV footage of the people they believe were responsible for the synagogue attack and that of course has been declared as a terrorist incident.
01:29Police say that anybody who was using this so-called communal crime car should realise that they are now forensically linked to a terrorism investigation.
01:41And they've warned criminals that terrorism carries with it a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.
