Swords, extremist material and Nazi salutes: Three men charged as part of federal police blitz

A Sydney man will be charged with using a Nazi salute at a public gathering after federal police launched a week-long blitz targeting the display and distribution of far-right paraphernalia and other illegal symbols.

Police have also seized swastika-bearing swords and charged a British man with hate crimes for using social media to promote pro-Nazi ideology and violence against the Jewish community, the Australian Federal Police revealed on Monday. A third man was also charged with possessing extremist material.

“I could not be clearer: the AFP will not hesitate to take action against those who undermine Australia’s social cohesion, sovereignty and democracy,” AFP Assistant Commissioner Stephen Nutt said at a press conference in Canberra.

“The AFP will not tolerate any forms of intimidation, threats or calls for violence against vulnerable communities.”

In early 2024 the Albanese government made it illegal to perform the Nazi salute in public or to display, or trade in, Nazi hate symbols.

Nutt revealed that a 25-year-old man from Sydney has been issued with a court attendance notice after investigators executed a search warrant at a property in Castle Hill, in Sydney’s north-west, last Thursday.

Legal documents, obtained by this masthead, confirm the man is Jayden Delacour.

As well as allegedly importing 12 flags, it will be alleged Delacour used a Nazi salute at a public gathering in Sydney.

He has been ordered to front Parramatta Local Court on January 29 for one count of doing a Nazi salute in public.

Social media accounts under Delacour’s name have previously suggested the Holocaust “didn’t happen” while defending attempts by the National Socialist Network to form a political movement.

“It wasn’t 6 million and it wasn’t a genocide either, they were being expelled,” Delacour wrote on Facebook last month.

The NSW government last month gave police and courts greater powers to combat public displays of Nazi ideology following a controversial rally held outside state parliament.

The November 8 rally featured two rows of men clad in black, displaying a banner calling to “Abolish the Jewish lobby”.

Nutt said federal police had undertaken a concerted week of action between November 27 and December 4, targeting the display and potentially unlawful commercialisation of prohibited symbols.

The 43-year-old British national, who was living in Queensland, is alleged to have used two X accounts to display the Nazi swastika known as the Hakenkreuz and “espouse a pro-Nazi ideology with a specific hatred of the Jewish community, and to advocate for violence towards this community,” police said.

Officers raided a Caboolture home in November and seized several weapons, including swords emblazoned with swastika symbology, axes and knives.

The man was charged with three counts of public display of prohibited Nazi symbols and one count of using a carriage service to menace, harass or cause offence.

He will next appear in court in January.

A 21-year-old Brisbane man also faces up to five years in prison after flags, literature, balaclavas and electronic devices were seized by police from his home. The man has been charged with two counts of possessing or controlling violent extremist material after appearing before Brisbane Magistrates Court last week.

Australian Border Force assistant commissioner Tony Smith said: “Antisemitism threatens the safety and security not only of Australia’s Jewish and Muslim communities, but Australia as a whole. It puts at risk our present and future as a peaceful, free, cohesive and diverse, multicultural society.”

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