Jim Saleam

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jim Saleam being interviewed at the Sydney Forum, August 2006

James Saleam (commonly referred to as Jim Saleam) (born in 1955) is an Australian far-right activist and former member of the short-lived National Socialist Party of Australia in the early 1970s.

Saleam founded National Action (NA) on Anzac Day, 1982. National Action eventually imploded due to Saleam's criminal actions which included insurance fraud [1] and for organising a shotgun attack on ANC representative Eddie Funde by two NA members. [2]

Saleam was convicted for firearms offences[3] and for organising the attack in 1991 and was sentenced to three and a half years imprisonment. He has maintained his innocence of the charge, claiming he was framed by politicised police, and his legal defence has been published on the internet. [4]

On his release from prison, Saleam earned a PhD in politics from the University of Sydney by writing a thesis entitled The Other Radicalism: An Inquiry Into Contemporary Australian Extreme Right Ideology, Politics And Organization 1975-1995.

Saleam is currently the mentor for the Patriotic Youth League and is also the Secretary of the Sydney branch of the Australia First Party.

[edit] Allegations of Lebanese ethnicity

Due to his surname, Jim Saleam has faced accusations over the years of being of Lebanese ethnicity by those in Australian White Nationalist and neo-Nazi circles, including those by his former NA associate turned nemesis Jack van Tongeren [5], as well as those from his opponents in the anti-racist community [6] [7]

Saleam, however, has denied these allegations, insisting that he is of Greek descent. [8]