US neo-Nazi sentenced for explosives charges

WASHINGTON: A neoNazi who created a terror cell called ‘Atomwaffen’ and kept a framed picture of the Oklahoma City bomber in his bedroom was sentenced to five years in prison Tuesday for possessing an explosive device and material.

It was the latest in a recent string of cases linked to rightwing extremists, after it emerged that a white man who attended last year’s ‘ Unite the Right’ rally in Charlottesville was charged with terrorism for attempting to wreck an Amtrak train in rural Nebraska.

Brandon Clint Russell, 22, of Tampa, Florida had pleaded guilty to keeping illicit explosives on Sept 27, 2017.

Russell’s cache was discovered when officers from the Tampa Police Department responded to a double homicide at an apartment where he had been living with the alleged shooter, Devon Arthurs, and the two deceased victims, according to prosecutors.

Officers discovered a cooler in the garage containing the explosive HMTD ( Hexamethylene Triperoxide Diamine), along with various other explosive precursors, multiple pounds of ammonium nitrate, nitro-methane, empty shell casings, fuses and electric matches in close proximity.

In his bedroom, “officers found neo- Nazi and white supremacist propaganda, including a framed picture of Timothy McVeigh on his dresser,” the statement added.

McVeigh was executed in 2001 for carrying out the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people and injured more than 600 others, and has been something of a hero for right-wing extremists since that time.

Russell’s closet also contained his own military uniform, firearms and ammunition, and camouflage military-type gear containing the name and symbols of ‘Atomwaffen’, the group he was said to have created with his roommates. — AFP