Iraqi officials arrest man wanted by Australian police as ‘number one priority’

By Kirsty Needham

SYDNEY, Jan 14 (Reuters) – Iraqi officials have arrested a man wanted by Australian Federal Police as a person of interest in the investigation into a spate of firebombings, including an antisemitic attack on a Melbourne synagogue, police said on Wednesday.

Australian Federal Police Commissioner Krissy Barrett said the arrested man, Kazem Hamad, was a threat to national security and that she had identified him as her “Number One priority”.

Iraq’s National Center for International Judicial Cooperation said in a statement that Kadhim Malik Hamad Rabah al-Hajami had been arrested as part of a drugs investigation, after a request from Australia.

Barrett said Iraqi officials had made an independent decision to arrest the man in their own criminal investigation, after Australian Federal Police provided information to Iraqi law enforcement late last year.

“This arrest is a significant disruption to an alleged serious criminal and his alleged criminal enterprise in Australia,” she said in a statement.

In October, Barrett said that in addition to being a suspect in arson attacks in Australia linked to the tobacco trade, the man was “a person of interest in the investigation into the alleged politically-motivated arson attack on the Adass Israel Synagogue” in Melbourne

Australia expelled Iran’s ambassador in August after the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation traced the funding of hooded criminals who allegedly set fire to the Melbourne synagogue in December 2024 to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Hamad, previously convicted in Australia for drug trafficking offences, was deported from Australia to Iraq in 2023.

(Reporting by Kirsty Needham in Sydney; Editing by Michael Perry)