Australian police find ammo and bomb list at Bondi beach shooting supporter home

Australian police have recovered thousands of cartridges, Hamas and Hezbollah flags and a “shopping list” of materials to make explosives from the home of a man who allegedly posted anti-Semitic messages on social media.

Martin Thomas Glynn, 39, from a suburb of Perth in Western Australia, appeared at his court hearing on Wednesday after being charged with three offenses including carrying a prohibited weapon.

On December 14, just hours after two gunmen killed 15 people at the popular Bondi Beach during a Hanukkah celebration, Glynn posted messages on social media pledging his support for the shooters, police said in a statement of facts to a Perth court on Wednesday.

“I just want to say that I, Martin Glynn, 100 per cent support the NSW shooters,” he said in one of his messages, police told the court.

His arrest on Tuesday came on the same day that the government of New South Wales, the country’s most populous state, proposed a series of reforms strengthening gun ownership laws and banning street protests for up to three months. Glynn’s arrest and rapid changes to gun laws are part of a broader effort by authorities to restore a sense of security in Australia, which has been rocked by the worst mass shooting in three decades.

“There is no place in Australia for anti-Semitism, hatred and violent ideologies,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said in a statement posted on Instagram on Wednesday.

Glynn’s arrest came as police executed a search warrant at his suburban home, where investigators found flags of Hamas and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, six legally acquired rifles and 4,000 rounds of ammunition in his home, police said.

Notes referring to Hitler and the Holocaust were also found, investigators told the court, where the accused appeared, representing himself.

Police said they also found images showing how to make smoke bombs and improvised initiators made from shaved aluminum, used to make explosives.

Additionally, Glynn had access to open source information on explosives making and had a comprehensive “shopping list” consistent with bomb making, even though none of the items were present at his home, the court was told.

In one of his Instagram posts, Glynn wrote that he had “no sympathy for the victims,” ​​citing Palestinians killed by Israel in Gaza, police said.

In his defence, Glynn told the court he owned “50 different types” of flags which “weren’t on display, they were in a box”.

Glynn said he had become “very opinionated” as Israel waged its war in Gaza. “I was hoping to expose the hypocrisy,” he said.

More than 70,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s war in the Gaza Strip, following the Hamas attacks on October 7, 2023, which killed nearly 1,200 people and saw 251 people taken hostage.

Glynn said he had no intention of harming anyone and was just a “doomsday prepper”, saying the fire starters were just packaged matches he uses for a fire pit.

“I’m not a violent person,” he told the court.

“There is nothing illegal or necessarily inappropriate about supporting the Palestinian cause,” the magistrate said. “What is not appropriate is posting comments online supporting a massacre of innocent civilians.”

Glynn was refused bail and will next appear in court on February 3.