UK: British neo-Nazi jailed over racist terror plot
Wed Sep 9 03:59:49 EST 2009
Tue Sep 8 17:59:49 UTC 2009
LONDON, Sept 8 AFP - A British neo-Nazi who wanted to emulate Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh was jailed for at least six years on Tuesday for plotting a racist terror campaign.
Neil Lewington, a 44-year-old unemployed electrician, built a bomb factory in his bedroom to assemble devices including tennis ball shrapnel bombs to target families of South Asian origin, his trial was told.
A notebook entitled "Waffen SS UK members' handbook" including drawings of electronics and chemical devices, as well as a note reading "compressed thermite grenade vs Paki front door" were also found.
Lewington - who lived with his parents in Tilehurst, outside Reading, and who was arrested by chance after drunkenly abusing a female official at a train station - told one woman that "the only good Paki was a dead Paki".
"This man, who had strong if not fanatical right wing leanings and opinions, was on the cusp of embarking on a campaign of terrorism against those he considered non-British," said prosecutor Brian Altman.
"In addition to his extreme views on race and ethnicity, the defendant had an unhealthy interest in bombers as well as bombings."
At his home police also found videos about McVeigh, co-author of the 1995 Oklahoma bombing which killed 168, and British far-righter David Copeland, who nail-bombed a gay bar in London's Soho district in 1999, killing three.
Altman said Lewington "admired, and might soon have emulated, the bombers about whom he possessed two compilation video tapes, had he not been captured, albeit quite fortuitously".
Judge Peter Thornton said: "You are a dangerous man, somebody who exhibits emotional coldness and detachment. You would not have been troubled by the prospect of endangering somebody's life."
