Police officer ‘arrested over membership of Nazi group’

A POLICE constable was arrested yesterday on suspicion of being part of a banned far-Right extremist group with links to terrorism.

The 21-year-old was held by counter-terrorism officers as a house in north London was searched. He was still in custody last night, Scotland Yard said.

A spokesman said he was suspected of being a member of a proscribed organisation linked to Right-wing terrorism, but there was no evidence to suggest there had been any threat to the public.

Though there is no indication that the two cases are related, a Nazi swastika was found scrawled in biro in a secure area inside a police station in Edmonton, north London, last year.

Scotland Yard said the Metropolitan force’s directorate of professional standards had been informed and the officer’s status was ‘under review’. The case has also been referred to the Independent Office of Police Conduct watchdog.

Membership of, or offering support to, a banned group can result in ten years’ jail.

Last month the neo-Nazi group Sonnenkrieg Division (SKD) became the second far-Right outfit to be banned as a terrorist organisation in the UK.

Two teenage members, Michal Szewczuk, 19, from Leeds, and Oskar DunnKoczorowski, 18, from west London, were jailed for terrorism offences in June last year after they encouraged an attack on Prince Harry. They called him a ‘race traitor’ for marrying Meghan Markle.

In 2016, the neo-Nazi National Action, also called System Resistance Network, became the first UK far-Right group to be banned since the Second World War.

Home Secretary Priti Patel said: ‘Recent attacks here and in Germany have highlighted the threat we continue to face from violent extremism.’