Soldier stockpiled weapons for race war, court told
A British Army soldier based in Mid Wales stockpiled daggers and machetes while planning to create all-white strongholds ahead of a race war, a court heard.
The trial at Birmingham Crown Court was told Mikko Vehvilainen, who was based in a camp at Sennybridge, was part of the banned neo-Nazi group National Action and personally committed to carrying out violence on its behalf.
Vehvilainen, 33, is standing trial along with Private Mark Barrett, 25, and a 23-year-old man who cannot be named for legal reasons.
Continuing his opening of the case against the defendants, who all deny being members of National Action, prosecutor Duncan Atkinson QC claimed Vehvilainen wrote a list of “security kit” in a notebook.
Describing a raid by anti-terror police on Vehvilainen’s Army accommodation at Sennybridge on September 5, Mr Atkinson told the court: “At the time he was arrested a crudely-made device, which resembled a homemade EMP device, was found.”
Several lists and diary entries from early 2016 were also discovered, the court heard, making reference to weapons “that needed to be achieved”.
Mr Atkinson told jurors: “In a notebook recovered from the defendant’s address, he had drafted a document headed ‘Extinction’.
“From its content, it appears to be the first edition of a magazine in which he referred to the ‘extinction’ being the ‘genocide being forced upon whites’.”
Part of the notebook entry allegedly read: “Be prepared to fight and die for your race in a possible last stand for our survival”.
The Crown alleges Vehvilainen was an active recruiter for National Action, having introduced Barrett, who was based at Kendrew Army Barracks in Rutland, to the organisation.
Vehvilainen was arrested at about 7am after answering his door, confirming his identity and telling his wife: “I’m being arrested for being a patriot.”
Machetes, daggers, knuckle-dusters, a crossbow, arrows, circuit boards and a hammer were found at the property, along with Nazi flags, the jury was told. CDs of music related to the Third Reich were found in a car.
Barrett, who served alongside Vehvilainen in the Royal Anglian Regiment, was detained at an army base in Cyprus, also on September 5.
The trial continues.
