Australian police have reportedly found new clues related to the 1982 bombings of the Israel’s Consulate in Sydney and a Jewish club in the city. Police told a press conference that interviews had been conducted in Israel with former consulate staff as well as with witnesses of the bombings. "We are working with the authorities in Israel," Police Detective Chief Superintendent Wayne Gordon said. "We are working with the Jewish community and advising some of the leaders on a regular basis as to the operational information that is appropriate.”
The case was reopened in August with new technology enabling police to focus on two men possibly connected to the ‘15 May’ organization, a Baghdad-based offshoot of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Investigators from Operation Forbearance, which also involves Australian Federal Police and Australia's spy agency, now are also pursuing a woman who picked up the car that was used to set off the bomb in the car park underneath the Hakoah Club, JTA reports. All three suspects were thought to have been in their mid-20s at the time and are probably still alive, Gordon said.
On 23 December 1982, a bomb exploded inside the stairwell of the Israeli Consulate, which was based in the Westfield Towers, the headquarters of Holocaust survivor Frank Lowy’s shopping mall group. Nearly five hours later, another blast ripped through the car park underneath the Hakoah Club, which reportedly had more than 200 people inside.
Two people were injured at the consulate, one seriously. No-one was killed. Police believe the bomb in the Jewish club was intended to cause the collapse of the building. One man was charged but the case was later dropped due to a lack of evidence. It has now been established by the investigators that the gas cylinders that formed part of the car bomb tat the Hakoah Club had been stolen from Sydney's Central Station.
