SYDNEY, Australia (JTA) — Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating has condemned the vandalism of a Jewish cemetery in Adelaide, South Australia.

More than 60 graves were desecrated at the West Terrace Cemetery in daylight Friday of last week.

The cemetery includes graves that date back to the 1840s.

Keating called the act an "affront to the community" and said the perpetrators had "no place in a tolerant society."

Isi Leibler, president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, caled the attack "the most despicable crime against Australia's Jewish community in memory."

Adelaide is the base for several small neo-Nazi and anti-Semitic groups. Jews and human rights workers have reported being harassed and attacks on their property in recent months.

Mexican confesses to killing emissary

TEL AVIV (JTA) — A Mexican man has confessed to last week's murder of a World Zionist Organization emissary in Mexico City.

Jose Hill Hernandes Sanchez turned himself in to Mexican police Monday night, and reconstructed his murder of Shlomo Biran, calling it a "crime of passion."

Hernandes, who was the superintendent of the building where Biran lived, told police he went to Biran's apartment on July 6 "once again to fix the water pipes, which had been improperly repaired the day before."

When Biran complained about his sloppy work, Sanchez said, he struck him on the head with a wrench. Hernandes said he strangled Biran to death with a cord he found in the apartment.

Biran, 59, had worked for a year as a music teacher at the Magen David school for WZO's Department of Education and Culture in the diaspora.

While he was in Mexico City, Biran's family — his wife, Yael; a 27-year-old son, Tzlil; and two daughters, Shiri, 23, and Inbal, 21 — remained in Israel.

Old Swedish cemetery desecrated, vandalized

NEW YORK (JTA) — An ancient Swedish Jewish cemetery was vandalized last week by unknown perpetrators, say local police.

In the cemetery in the town of Karlskrona, two tombstones were overturned and 15 others were daubed with swastikas.

The Karlskrona attack, in which the headstones were spray painted with swastikas, appears to be the work of neo-Nazi skinheads, Steinberg added.

The cemetery dates back to 1782.