Teenager from Rugby linked to neo-Nazi groups faces terror charge after praising terrorists and searching about guns online

A seventeen-year-old from Rugby linked to neo-Nazi groups is facing a terror charge in Birmingham Crown Court. It is understood that he is alleged to have joined the neo-Nazi Feuerkrieg Division group, which the Home Office plans to proscribe.

The court was told that the defendant, who cannot be named for legal reasons, had to pass a test to prove his hatred of Jews and that he had “graphic” video footage of a terrorist attack on his telephone and had searched the internet for information about guns, including how to convert a gun that fires blanks into a live weapon.

He had also apparently praised the terrorist who carried out the mass shooting last year in Christchurch, New Zealand, describing such perpetrators as “saints”.

His original trial was ended by the pandemic lockdown earlier this year, and the retrial has now commenced, with jurors told that he had adopted the “twisted ideology” of Nazis and white supremacists and had participated in far-right chat groups online, where he shared the information about firearms that he had learned.

In one of the messages, the defendant said that he was an administrator of a group called ‘League of Nationalists’, and also said: “Whatever happens I’m going to have a local unit. I’m working on the propaganda and the weapons. I need men.”

The trial is expected to last for several weeks.