FBI arrests 3 alleged white supremacists planning to incite violence
The FBI has arrested three members of a white supremacist group, saying they were armed and were planning to incite violence at a gun-rights rally in the state of Virginia.
The US Justice Department said in a news release on Thursday that the three men were members of “The Base”, an international network of hate groups and neo-Nazis with paramilitary training.
The three suspects appeared in a federal court in Greenbelt, Maryland, on Thursday.
Federal prosecutors said that US citizens Brian Lemley, 33, and William Bilbrough, 19, and Canadian Patrik Jordan Mathews, 27, were all charged with felony firearms violations.
Mathews, a Canadian army reserve trained in explosives, was reported missing in Canada in August 2019 after he was suspended from his reserve unit for alleged neo-Nazi activities.
The FBI said he illegally entered the United States and was met in the border state of Minnesota by Lemley and Bilbrough, who drove him to Maryland.
The arrest came a day after the governor of the neighboring state of Virginia declared a "state of emergency" ahead of a gun rights rally in the capital of Richmond, citing "credible threats" of violence from white nationalist and militia groups.
US media cited unnamed law enforcement officials as saying the three suspects discussed attending the pro-gun rally on Monday to protest against a new Virginia law banning guns in the buildings of the state legislature.
In 2017, a white supremacist and neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, led to the death of a counter-protester and the injury of 19 other people.
US President Donald Trump, who has a strong following among white nationalists, blamed “both sides” for the violence, drawing domestic and international condemnation.
Critics say that Trump’s divisive rhetoric and policies against immigrants and minorities before and after his election have emboldened far-right groups and promoted hate crimes across the US.
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