US white supremacist charged with synagogue bomb plot, Latest World News - The New Paper
World

US white supremacist charged with synagogue bomb plot

This article is more than 12 months old

LOS ANGELES: A self-avowed white supremacist has been charged with plotting to blow up a synagogue in Colorado, prosecutors said.

Richard Holzer was arrested on Friday night by undercover agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) who had provided him with fake explosives after he shared details of his plan with them.

"Holzer repeatedly expressed his hatred of Jewish people and his support for... a racial holy war," the US attorney's office for Colorado said.

Holzer, 27, who self-identifies as a skinhead and a white supremacist, told one undercover agent he was previously a member of the Ku Klux Klan, according to court documents.

He allegedly told agents who contacted him through Facebook that he wanted to destroy the Temple Emanuel synagogue in Pueblo, around 160km south of Denver, and "get that place off the map".

They provided him with fake explosives including two pipe bombs and dynamite sticks on Friday, just hours before his plot was due to take place.

Holzer also wrote a series of anti-Semitic posts on Facebook, including one stating "I wish the Holocaust really did happen... they need to die", the court documents show.

He is in federal custody and faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison if convicted.

In August, a Las Vegas man was charged with possessing bomb-making materials and discussing plans to target another synagogue in contact with a "white supremacist extremist organisation". - AFP

WORLD