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White supremacist found guilty of plotting bomb terror campaign
Paul Cheston, Courts Correspondent15.07.09
A NEO-FASCIST fanatic, dubbed the Tennis Ball Bomber, was convicted at the Old Bailey today of plotting a terrorist campaign for white supremacy.
Neil Lewington, 43, converted his bedroom in the home he shared with his parents into a factory turning tennis balls into shrapnel bombs.
Police say only an astonishing stroke of luck prevented a bombing campaign similar to neo-Nazi David Copeland's attacks in 1999.
The convictions come two weeks after anti-terrorist chiefs warned British Muslims that far-Right extremists were on the verge a "spectacular" attack to stoke up racist feelings.
Lewington had links with Combat 18, Blood and Honour, and pro-Nazi group the British People's Party.
His aims were white supremacy, white nationalism and racism and he targeted anyone he considered "non-British", including blacks and Asians.
Unemployed and living off benefits, he hero-worshipped Copeland and terrorists such as the Unabomber and Oklahoma bomber Timothy McVeigh.
At this home, police found a copy of the Waffen SS UK members' handbook and neighbours say he spoke of his support for the National Front and Ku Klux Klan.
Lewington was found guilty today of seven charges, including five under the Terrorism Act, and will be sentenced in September by Judge Peter Thornton QC. He had refused to give evidence to the jury but had told police that his devices were fireworks, not bombs.
The court heard how Lewington had been arrested last October after leaving a train carrying the components of two of his deadly bombs. The alcoholic had been reported for drunken behaviour on his way from London to Lowestoft and he was picked up for urinating in public at the station.
Prosecutor Brian Altman QC told the court this was an astonishing stroke of luck which could have saved unknown numbers of lives.
"This man who had strong, if not fanatical, Right-wing leanings and opinions was on the cusp of embarking on a campaign of terror against those he regarded as being not British."
At his home in Reading police discovered a production line of similar bombs and a library of references to electronics and chemicals.
In a locked toolbox were notebooks on how to make ammunition and gunpowder and how to protect oneself from bomb attack.
There were diagrams about how to make bombs containing petrol and napalm and how to pack explosives into milk bottles, tuna tins and copper pipes.
Lewington had gathered bomb-making ingredients such as potassium chlorate and weedkiller with equipment including electronic circuit boards, switches and batteries.
Alongside were his vicious Right-wing writings and compilation videos of news and documentary footage of the most notorious recent bombings in Britain and the United States.
In one notebook Lewington had written what was described in court as "a chilling mission statement" from what is termed "the command council Waffen SS UK".
It stated: "We have 30 members... we are highly trained ex-military personnel and will use incendiary and explosive devices throughout the UK at random until non-British people as defined by blood are removed from our country. This is no joke."
Witnesses said Lewington told them how he tested his tennis ball shrapnel bombs in the woods.
Bethan David, of the Crown Prosecution Service counter-terrorism division, said Lewington "had the knowledge and the will to cause destruction, injury and death".
Reader views (6)
God, the Establishment is really paying this up! ...Are they THAT desperate to "prove" that "far-Right extremists were on the verge a 'spectacular' attack"? Well, they've got to justify the billions of pounds wasted and the associated loss of our freedoms for the sake of the so-called "War on Terror", I suppose.
Get real: the guy's a joke!
- Croyboy, Croydon
"Unemployed and living off benefits"
How on earth could afford the components?
- Bob, Cheam
We have 30 members.
Gosh how scary. Jumped up little brat, he should be sent to Bombay and told to live there for a year. Ignorant person but I note the tolerance offered to ignorant asian extremists is never offered to white extremists or the reporting of the story the same when they are both guilty of the same crime
- Gerry, Essex
He'll be thrown in gaol and they'll throw away the key - and rightly so. I just wish they'd be as diligent with the imported terrorists too.
- Rogan, Irving
Someone with a face like HIS is a white supremacist? Ah, the irony...
- Didi, London, UK
funny how white supremacists always look like they wouldn't reign supreme amongst neanderthals.
- Squiz, Islington
