Two men and a 16-year-old boy have been arrested in Melbourne over what police say are potentially terrorism-related offences allegedly motivated by “religious extremism”.
On Wednesday members of the joint counter terrorism team conducted raids on two homes in Epping and Pascoe Vale, arresting the boy and two men aged 19 and 20.
The 16-year-old was released on Wednesday afternoon, while the two other men are still in custody and being interviewed by police.
Charges are yet to be laid but assistant commissioner Michael Hermans, the head of Victoria police’s counter terrorism command, said police would allege the 19-year-old “attempted to engage in a terrorist act”.
“One potential outcome of that interview is they may face terror charges,” he said. “It could relate to attempted terrorism or acts in preparation of terrorism.”
Hermans said the investigation into the three men related to a fire on 18 February in bushland about 30 minutes’ drive north of Epping, as well as an assault on an individual in metropolitan Melbourne on 10 March.
Hermans said police believed the incidents might have been motivated by an “ideology based on religious extremism”, and that officers had acted on the basis that the “risk profile” of the men was “increasing”.
“It is Islamic [in] motivation,” he said. “But let me be very clear: we target the crime, not the ideology.”
Because charges have yet to be laid, police were reluctant to divulge details of the allegations likely to be made against the men, but said they believed the incidents might have been motivated by “religious extremism”.
“Without going into that detail, there are certain respects to the lighting of the fire which leads us to suspect it was a terrorism motivation,” Hermans said.
This morning’s raids were conducted by the joint counter-terrorism team, which includes members from Victoria police, the Australian federal police and the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation.
The two incidents had not initially been investigated by counter-terrorism police, Hermans said, but police had received “intelligence” in relation to one of the men which “led us to believe that perhaps [it was] more serious than initially [thought]”.
“We received information that suggested their ideology would be of concern to the Victorian community and as a result conducted investigations into one [person] which led to three [persons of interest],” he said.
Hermans said the 16-year-old was released after his arrest but police would continue to “engage” with him and “offer him support and hopefully divert him away from the act which saw him come to our attention this morning”.
Assistant commissioner Scott Lee from the Australian federal police would not speculate on the case but said generally that the Covid-19 pandemic appeared to have “exacerbated radicalisation for some young people across Australia and the world”.
“It’s a phenomenon we see regularly now with our counter-terrorism, regardless of the ideology,” he said.
“The magnification of the online environment ... that is certainly what we have seen out of the Covid period. People have been driven into the online environment and that has exacerbated some of the radicalisation we have seen.”
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