A white army veteran accused of killing an elderly African American man in cold blood in Manhattan has said he would rather have killed a younger or more successful black man.

James Harris Jackson, 28, is charged with murder as a hate crime following the death of 66-year-old Timothy Caughman in New York. He allegedly attacked Mr Caughman in the back and chest as he was collecting bottles on Wednesday night, using a sword with an 18-inch blade as a weapon.

In an interview with the New York Daily News, Jackson said he chose to attack Mr Caughman at random but said he did not realise he was elderly. The army veteran said he would rather have killed a “young thug” or a “successful older black man with blondes,” indicating his detest of interracial couples.

Jackson, from Baltimore, turned himself in to a police station in Times Square 25 hours after Mr Caughman had staggered into a police precinct bleeding to death. He was rushed to hospital where he later died from his injuries.

District attorney Joan Illuzi said Jackson travelled to New York to kill as many black men as possible and “make a statement,” but turned himself in before murdering anyone else. She said it is possible Jackson’s charges could be upgraded because the killing was an act “most likely of terrorism”.

Speaking from Rikers Island, the jail complex where Jackson is being held ahead of his trial, the army veteran outlined his white supremacist beliefs.

“The white race is being eroded… No one cares about you, the blacks don’t care about you,” he told the newspaper.

CCTV shows James Harris Jackson running moments after stabbing Timothy Caughman

He claimed to have had racist thoughts since the age of three, but described his family in Baltimore as being “as liberal as they come”. Jackson said he had turned to online spaces such as the Daily Stormer to discuss his racist views with “like-minded people” instead.

Jackson joined the army in 2009 and served in Afghanistan as a military intelligence analyst and was discharged three years later after earning a number of medals. He told the newspaper that his military training had aided him in his plan to kill African American men in the city.

He said he had been thinking about attacking people for the past three years, and “figured I would end up getting shot by police, kill myself, or end up in jail.”

In a statement, the Jackson family extended condolences to Caughman's family and said it was "shocked, horrified and heartbroken by this tragedy."