Army arrests: 3 on neo-Nazi charges

THREE men accused of being in a banned far-Right group have been charged with terrorism offences.

Alex Deakin, 22, Mikko Vehvilainen, 32, originally from Finland, and Mark Barrett, 24, have been charged with membership of National Action.

They were part of a group of five – including four serving soldiers – held on suspicion of terror offences last week. The three men charged will appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court today, while the other two were released without charge.

Barrett – charged with one count of being a member of a proscribed organisation – is believed to have been detained at the Army’s Dhekelia base in Cyprus. Vehvilainen, who lives in Sennybridge Camp, Mid Wales, is also charged with one count of being part of the neo-Nazi group.

Deakin, from Birmingham, faces the same charge, as well as possessing documents useful to someone wanting to commit an act of terrorism, one count of distribution of a terrorist publication and one count of inciting racial hatred.

National Action, which was described by the Home Office as ‘ virulently racist, antiSemitic and homophobic’, became the first extreme Right- wing group to be banned under terrorism laws last December. It was linked to the murder of Labour MP Jo Cox last year.