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Swiss participate in raids against neo-Nazis

AFP/The Local
AFP/The Local - [email protected]
Swiss participate in raids against neo-Nazis
Kristian Vikernes, Norwegian alleged neo-Nazi arrested in France. Photo: AFP/Getty Images

Police launched raids in Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland on Wednesday against six suspected members of a far-right "Werewolf" cell modelled on late-Second World War plans for a Nazi guerrilla resistance.

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Four suspects in the three countries, plus two neo-Nazis in detention in Switzerland, were suspected of having formed a terrorist organization that was considering violent attacks, said Germany's federal prosecution office.

The raids came a day after French police arrested Kristian Vikernes, a notorious Norwegian alleged neo-Nazi living on a farm in the rural region of Corrèze.

Vikernes was arrested over fears he was plotting a massacre similar to that carried out in Norway by terrorist Anders Behring Breivik. 
   
The aim of Wednesday's coordinated raids, which targeted homes, business premises and jail cells and involved about 50 police in Germany alone, was to gather evidence against the suspects, prosecutors said.

No arrests were made.

The men "are suspected of having founded a right-wing extremist 'werewolf command'," said prosecutors, referring to the Nazi's unrealized plan for a clandestine "Werewolf" commando force that would mount a rebellion against victorious Allied forces in Germany.
   
"The group's apparent objective was to eradicate the political system of the Federal Republic of Germany," said prosecutors in a statement.

ALLEGED NEO-NAZI ARRESTED IN FRANCE
   
Members of the extremist group were believed to have developed their own electronic encryption programme to evade surveillance.
   
The prosecutors said that until now the investigators had gathered "no actual evidence of concrete preparations for attacks".
   
The raids in Germany took places in the northern states of Hamburg, Lower Saxony and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.

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