A British army trainer accused of joining a “virulently racist” neo-Nazi group kept a terrorism manual written by the white nationalist Anders Breivik, a court heard.

L/Cpl Mikko Vehvilainen is accused of membership of National Action, along with private Mark Barrett and a 23-year-old man who cannot be named for legal reasons.

All three were described at the start of their trial by prosecutors as “active members” of the rightwing group, before and after it was banned in December 2016.

Opening the case at Birmingham crown court on Monday, Duncan Atkinson QC said the men were not being prosecuted for their “racist or neo-Nazi beliefs, however repulsive they may be”.

Rather, they were on trial for being members of a group “that sought actively through fear, intimidation and the threat of violence rather than through free speech and democracy to shape society in accordance with those beliefs”, he said.

Vehvilainen, 33, and Barrett, 24, were both serving members of the Royal Anglian Regiment, the court heard. The men came to the attention of the West Midlands counter-terrorism unit and the Ministry of Defence after an investigation into National Action.

Atkinson said National Action “engaged in a campaign of virulently racist, antisemitic, and homophobic propaganda, through which it sought to stir up a violent race war against ethnic minorities and others it perceived as ‘race traitors’.”

He added: “Hostile to democracy and the British state, National Action actively sought to recruit and radicalise young people through the violent imagery and hate-filled language of its social media messages, its provocative street demonstrations and intimidation of local communities.”

Jurors were told the group was banned in the UK after a number of actions including its “support for the murder of the MP for Batley, Jo Cox”.

Barrett, who was based at Kendrew army barracks in Rutland, was allegedly recruited by his older colleague and had an “active affiliation” with the group, the court heard.

When officers searched Vehvilainen’s home at the army’s Welsh HQ in Sennybridge Camp in Wales, officers found a document on a phone written by Breivik under an alias.



Atkinson said the manual, entitled A European Declaration of Independence, contained “both ideology and methodology of his own attacks” and items on “funding, recruitment, training and armoury for acts of terrorism”.

Vehvilainen’s phone also allegedly contained evidence of 900 visits to a website where he made racist comments about black people, “dehumanising them and inciting hatred against them”, the court heard.

The case continues.