Teenage neo-Nazi said he was ‘getting armed and in shape’ for terror attack, court hears

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An alleged teenage neo-Nazi said he was “getting armed and getting in shape” for an attack, a court has heard.

The 17-year-old boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, is accused of joining the Feuerkrieg Division (FKD) while preparing to commit an act of terrorism last summer.

Birmingham Crown Court heard that he was admitted as a member of FKD after doing an online test where he was asked his opinion of Jews and fascism.

The boy allegedly wrote that Jewish people “must be eradicated”, called fascism “the pursuit of restoring the natural order” and said he wanted to “go out there and provoke” a race war.

The teenager, from Rugby in Warwickshire, passed the test and was added to private online chats between FKD members on the Wire encrypted communication app.

Prosecutor Matthew Brook told the court the boy had asked an adult friend for advice on where he could buy a blank-firing gun.

Mr Brook said online discussions then showed him offering “concrete, practical advice about not only converting a blank-firing gun, but making ammunition for it that will ‘smash heads”’.

In a series of posts, alleged to be a reference to converting a blank-firing weapon, the youth allegedly wrote: “Blank-firing plus drill press. You can drill through the barrel with a strong drill bit.

“It’s the best balance of form and function without getting a purpose-built gun.”

Mr Brook told the jury the conversation was happening between members of an extreme right-wing group “that believes violence — and in particular mass shootings — are good and will bring about a breakdown in society which will give them the opportunity to achieve their fascist aims”.

He added: “The prosecution say that even before joining FKD, the defendant was interested in whether this was a serious group that could be involved in physical action in the real world, rather than being in his words ‘just an online thing’.”

The court heard that the boy had access to a drill-press, which could be used to change a blank-firing gun into a lethal weapon, and claimed the converted firearm would be able to fire a steel ball.

”I’m getting armed and getting in shape. I’d urge everyone to do the same,” he allegedly told an online contact, who was an undercover law enforcement operative.

The jury heard that the boy and other members of FKD praised Anders Breivik, the white supremacist who massacred 77 people in Norway in 2011, and called him a “saint”.

The defendant is also accused of praising the Christchurch terrorist Brenton Tarrant, and had a recording of the shootings he carried out at two mosques last year on his phone.

On Tuesday, Mr Brook told the jury that the teenager had “become radicalised so he fully believed in extreme right-wing ideology — that is the twisted ideology of Nazis and white supremacy”.

He added: “He came to believe an ideology which thinks a race war is coming — an ideology which believes its followers should bring about a race war, should accelerate its start, so that the white race can become supreme.

”He came to believe in an ideology which praises terrorists who carry out mass shootings, like the Christchurch shootings in New Zealand, and called the perpetrators of such terrorist massacres ‘saints’.“

The defendant denies preparing terrorist acts between April and September last year. The trial continues.

Additional reporting by PA