Neo-Nazi trio guilty of planning terror attack on Leeds mosque

Three neo-Nazi extremists who stockpiled an arsenal of over 200 weapons were found guilty of plotting a terror attack on a mosque in Leeds.

The group never met in person, but shared their racist, homophobic and violent ideologies online, discussing possible targets for terror attacks – including synagogues, mosques, and buildings housing refugees.

25-year-old Brogan Stewart, from West Yorkshire, fashioned himself as their leader and “Fuhrer”, telling Cannock-based Christopher Ringrose, 34 and Derby-based Marco Pitzettu, 25, to dress in Nazi-style clothing.

Stewart named them “Eitzen 14” – a reference to the notorious Nazi death squads. The Einsatzgruppen had murdered over one million Jewish people in mass shootings following the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941.

Counter-terrorism police revealed that the group planned for a “race war” and sourced body armour, riot gear, rations and over 200 weapons divided across their home addresses. Weapons recovered included machetes, hunting knives, swords, and crossbows.

Ringrose had been building a 3-D assault rifle, with instructions found online and required just a firing pin, bolt and barrel to become active and deadly. He also shared a photograph of his one-year-old child with a skull mask on the Telegram channel, captioned “choose violence”, the Guardian reported.

Tell MAMA identified a TikTok channel potentially linked to Ringrose, which we can now disclose following the guilty verdicts.

The TikTok account potentially linked to Christopher Ringrose contained extremist content from 2022 and followed far-right pages.

The account had uploaded a video in late May 2022, captioned “one mans terrorist another mans freedom fighter”, which stylised a photo of armed members of the IRA taken in Belfast in 1987 during the Troubles. Another meme featured an armed man with the caption, “You think the government cares about you?”.

Of the various pages followed by the account, we saw overt neo-Nazi pages containing totemkampf death skull avatars or 14/88 name variants amongst other ultranationalist pages from Europe and anti-Muslim materials invoking the Knights Templar.

During a group call on 5 February 2024, Stewart detailed plans to seek out “human targets” near an Islamic education centre. Counter-terrorism police made their arrests sixteen days later after an undercover officer had infiltrated their group. When the trial began, the prosecution outlined how the “imminent threat of an attack” resulted in their arrests.

A photograph of Brogan Stewart’s room in the house he shared with his mother included a Nazi flag and a poster for the neo-Nazi group the British Movement amongst various weapons.

Other racist statements from Stewart in the chat included calling the former prime minister Rishi Sunak the P-word.

During the trial, the prosecution outlined how Mr Stewart told an undercover officer of his desire to replicate the Nazi death squad and of his homemade “information extraction kit” that included pliers, gaffer tape, a blowtorch and how a “syringe filled with bleach” would get people talking. He also spoke of a desire to torture local imams.

Marco Pitzettu had obtained an illegal stun gun, in breach of the Firearms Act 1968, an offence which he pleaded guilty to prior to trial. Pitzettu also shared footage of the Christchurch terror attacks that resulted in the murder of 51 Muslims in New Zealand in 2019, highlighting the lingering influence of such white supremacist terror over those convicted of far-right terror offences across the UK.

Detective Chief Superintendent James Dunkerley, Head of Counter Terrorism Policing North East, made clear in a statement that: “Stewart, Pitzettu, and Ringrose have today been rightfully convicted of multiple terrorism offences.” Adding, “They were a group that espoused vile racist views and advocated for violence, all to support their extreme right-wing mindset.

“Some of their defence in court was that it was all fantasy or just part of harmless chat, however all three took real world steps to plan and prepare for carrying out an attack on innocent citizens.”

The trio faces sentencing on 17 July.

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Categories: Antisemitism, Neo-Nazi, News, Telegram, terrorism