Soldier ‘had manual written by mass killer’
A SOLDIER accused of being a member of a banned extremist neo-Nazi group had a terrorism manual written by mass killer Anders Breivik on his mobile phone, a court heard yesterday.
Lance Corporal Mikko Vehvilainen, 33, is accused of being a member of the ‘virulently racist’ far-Right group National Action, along with 25-year-old Private Mark Barrett.
The pair, both of the Royal Anglian Regiment, are facing the charge alongside another man who cannot be named for legal reasons.
A court heard the soldiers were ‘active members’ of the organisation that had ‘engaged in virulently racist, anti-Semitic and homophobic propaganda’ to stir up a ‘race war’.
Members of the group – which was banned under anti-terrorism legislation by the Government in 2016 – styled themselves ‘white jihadis’. Barrett is alleged to have joined in March last year after being recruited by Vehvilainen.
Barrett was arrested at Dhekelia Barracks in Cyprus, while Vehvilainen, who was working as an army trainer, was based at the Army’s Welsh headquarters in Sennybridge Camp.
At Birmingham Crown Court yesterday, Duncan Atkinson, QC, said: ‘These defendants are not being prosecuted for their racist or neoNazi beliefs, however repulsive they may be. But for their participation in an organisation that sought actively through fear, intimidation and the threat of violence, rather than through free speech and democracy. This case concerns the defendants’ involvement in, and membership of, the proscribed racist neo-Nazi group, National Action.
‘Hostile to democracy and the British state, National Action actively sought to recruit and radicalise young people through the violent imagery and hate-filled language of its social media messages.’
Vehvilainen, of Brecon, Powys, has denied two charges of stirring up racial hatred and possession of a terrorism manual.
The court was told a document found on his phone had been written by Andrew Berwick. Jurors heard that was an alias of Anders Breivik, the Right-wing extremist who killed 77 people in Norway in 2011.
The trial continues.