National Action co-founder made Nazi salute in concentration camp, court hears

The Welsh co-founder of a neo-Nazi group was pictured giving a Nazi salute in a concentration camp execution chamber, a court has heard.

Alex Davies, 28, from Uplands in Swansea, is accused of being a member of National Action, after it was banned as a terrorist organisation in 2016.

Winchester Crown Court was told National Action was committed to "all-out race war".

Mr Davies denies being a member of the proscribed group after its ban.

Jurors heard how members "celebrated" the murder of Jo Cox MP after she was killed in her constituency in June 2016.

The court heard how National Action was the first fascist group to be banned under terror legislation since World War Two, and joined the IRA, Al-Qaeda and Islamic State as banned organisations.

Organisations like this had not been seen in the UK since Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists, prosecutor Barnaby Jameson QC said.

He told the court on Wednesday the organisation aimed to complete the work of Adolf Hitler, that Mr Davies was an "extremist's extremist" and an "ideological purist".

He said Mr Davies' Nazi idolisation led him, with a convicted member of National Action, to post a photo of them carrying out a Nazi salute in the execution chamber at Buchenwald concentration camp in May 2016, causing a "massive storm in Germany and internationally".

Mr Jameson told jurors Mr Davies and co-founder Ben Raymond coined the phrase "white jihad", meaning "white terror", in a "throwback to Nazi Germany".

He said: "For the defendant and his cohorts the work of Adolf Hitler was, and remains, unfinished. The 'final solution to the Jewish question', to use Hitler's words, remains to be answered by complete eradication."

Mr Jameson said National Action's logo was "a direct nod" to that of the Sturmabteilung, the Nazi party's paramilitary wing.

He told the court the group advocated Nazi aims and ideals including the ethnic cleansing of anyone who did not fit the Aryan Nazi mould.

This, Mr Jameson said, included Jews, Muslims, people of colour, those of Asian descent, gay people and liberals.

The court heard the group "specifically targeted female Members of Parliament perceived to be pro-migrant".

"When Jo Cox MP was murdered in June 2016 the North East chapter of National Action openly celebrated her killing and expressed support for her killer, Thomas Mair, on social media.

"They even lauded the possibility of all MPs being taken out, without a whisper of dissent from anyone within National Action, least of all its co-founders."

The prosecutor said the group carried out flash demonstrations across the country including in Liverpool, Newcastle, York, Swansea and Darlington, during which they were seen "screaming Nazi-era proclamations through megaphones".

He added: "In York the defendant can be seen shouting into a megaphone in front of a banner containing the words 'Refugees not welcome: Hitler was right'."

Mr Jameson said the group had "paramilitary aspirations with emphasis on boxing, martial arts and knife fighting", and members, including serving soldier Mikko Vehvilainen had "stockpiled weapons".

He said these included explosives, knives, daggers, machetes, high-velocity crossbows, rifles, pump-action shotguns, knuckle dusters, disabling spray, baseball bats, a longbow and ceremonial Nazi daggers.

Mr Jameson said that members had bomb-making handbooks as well as a document created by Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik.

He added: "This was a tiny and secretive group of white jihadists arming themselves for direct and violent confrontation.

"They were not armchair neo-Nazis. The ultimate aim of the group was to exploit racial tensions as a means to an all-out assault on the democratic order."

The prosecutor also told jurors that the defendant attempted to avoid the ban by forming an offshoot group - NS131 - which also went on to be banned by the UK government nine months later.

He added that the defendant travelled "hundreds if not thousands of miles" to meet members of the group for National Action business after the group's ban.

Mr Jameson explained that the letters in the name of the NS131 "continuity" group set up by Mr Davies stood for "National Socialist - in short, Nazi".

The numbers, he said, represented the letters A, C and A and stood for anti-capitalist action making the full title National Socialist Anti-Capitalist Action.

He said: "If you take out the three middle words 'Socialist Anti-Capitalist' you are left with two words: National Action."

Mr Davies accepts co-founding National Action in 2013, but denies being a member between 17 December 2016 and 27 September 2017 as he believed the group ceased to exist.

Mr Jameson said Mr Davies was National Action's second-in-command and his ideology was the most extreme of any of the members.

"He was more similar to Heinrich Himmler of the original Nazis: An ideological purist who quietly and efficiently got things done," he said.

The jury was also shown a National Action poster based on the Reservoir Dogs movie poster giving key members nicknames in the style of the Quentin Tarantino film, with Mr Davies being given the name 'The Founder'.

The trial is expected to last a month.