LONDON – The first person convicted of belonging to an international white supremacist movement banned in the UK was jailed yesterday for at least six years.
Luca Benincasa, 20, was a “prominent member” of the Feuerkrieg Division (FKD), said judge Jane Miller as she sentenced him at Winchester Crown Court, southern England.
Benincasa, from Cardiff, south Wales, was last year calling himself the FKD’s “UK cell leader” and a recruiter to the group, which was established online.
The UK banned FKD in 2020, with then interior minister Priti Patel saying it “advocates violence and seeks to sow division, targeting young and vulnerable people online”.
Benincasa pleaded guilty last July to membership of the group and four counts of collecting information likely to be of use to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism.
He also pleaded guilty in August to five counts of possessing indecent images, some of them of children.
Police found a Nazi dagger and swastika armband among various far-right memorabilia when they searched his bedroom.
Judge Miller said police had seized material of “racist, antisemitic and homophobic” nature, adding he was “fanatical and single-minded”.
Benincasa’s laptop was found to contain instructions on how to make explosives, poisons and firearms.
Instagram and Snapchat messages written by him included comments such as “I’m a neo...Nazi” and “I am an extremist I commit multiple acts of hate crimes”.
Benincasa was jailed for five years and seven months for the terrorism charges and a further eight months on the pornography offences. – AFP, January 26, 2023
