Far-right conspiracy theorist denied the allegations and accused one of the lawyers of framing him

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Lawyers for relatives of some victims of the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting allege that the far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones sent them documents relating to the court battle they are fighting that included electronic files containing images of child sexual abuse, as the latest twist in the defamation case against the Infowars website host.

Jones denied the allegations during his web show last Friday and accused one of the lawyers involved of framing him.

Lawyers say the imagery was among documents they had requested from Jones as part of the discovery process of the lawsuit.

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The families of eight victims of the 2012 shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, and an FBI agent who responded to the massacre, are suing Jones, Infowars and others for promoting a theory that the shooting was a hoax.

Jones, of Austin, Texas, has since said he believes the shooting occurred.

A court hearing on the documents is scheduled for Tuesday.

Jones, who lives in Travis county, Texas, has used his media platform to call the mass shooting at an elementary school that killed 26 people a hoax and suggested a political cover-up took place by leftwing forces seeking to take advantage of the shooting to support their causes, such as gun control.

In 2013, he called the massacre “staged” and continued to stoke his conspiracy theory for years.

“Sandy Hook is a synthetic, completely fake, with actors, in my view, manufactured,” he said in a January 2015 broadcast.

Although his theory is false, people who believe Jones have for years harassed and taunted families of the victims, court papers showed and the families have said. Some families said they have been subjected to death threats and been forced to move several times in an effort to escape harassment.

On 14 December 2012, a gunman killed 20 young children and six adults at the elementary school in an attack that ranks among the deadliest mass shootings by a single gunman in US history.