A teenager was remanded in custody on charges of joining a terrorist movement that discussed “beheading Muslims and immigrants” in chat rooms.”

A judge at Holbeck court has just decided to extend the detention of a 15-year-old boy accused of joining the far-right group Foerkridge for four weeks.

The boy was charged with terrorism offenses because, according to the prosecution, he belonged to the FKD, which is considered a terrorist organization. He is also suspected of recruiting others to the group.

The boy denies the charges. Another 16-year-old boy in the case, accused of joining the movement, is not in jail and also denies guilt.

The session was held behind closed doors.

The head of the court said earlier, “It is a very serious case, but we are also dealing with a 15-year-old boy, and at the same time it is a very early stage in the investigation, and on this basis I close the doors.”.

The boy spoke at a neo-Nazi forum about beheading Muslims and blowing up nuclear power plants, which forms part of the case against him for joining a terrorist group. There was an extreme and Nazi tone in an international chat group belonging to the radical right-wing group Feuerkrieg Division, to which the boy belonged.

In numerous conversations, members of the group wrote together on the encrypted messaging service Telegram about explosives, racial warfare, and extremist propaganda methods.

The 15-year-old boy was charged before Easter and remanded in custody for being part of the Fouerkrieg (FKD) group from December 2021 to March 2022. The prosecution considers the FKD to be a terrorist group.

The Danish Broadcasting Corporation published excerpts from a Telegram chat it had obtained, in which it said, “Imagine if the Furkridge group was like al-Qaeda - only without all the Islamic shit - by spreading fear throughout the Western world…, we could be better. We wouldn’t hit any towers. We’d probably hit a nuclear power plant,” the boy wrote, referring to the attack on the World Trade Center in New York in 2001.

They all had their heads cut off
Another user wrote that it applies not only to Muslims but to all immigrants, and the boy (15 years old), who is using a pseudonym in the group, replied: “Yes. Cut off their heads all.”

The 15-year-old boy was also charged with recruiting his 16-year-old friend for the group and submitting an application in December stating that he was knowledgeable about weapons and explosives.

The 16-year-old boy was also charged with joining the FKD, and the boys were brought to a constitutional hearing at Holbeck Court.

According to experts interviewed by DR, the Feuerkrieg division is a relatively new neo-Nazi group that advocates for racial and civil war and operates primarily on online media.

In 2019, a member of the FKD from Lithuania was charged with leaving a bomb in front of an administrative building in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius. The bomb did not explode, and the member, who was a teenager, was arrested for carrying bomb-making materials.

According to the BBC, the group was founded in Estonia in 2018 by a teenager and operates mainly online, where they utilize encrypted messaging services.

The BBC reported that, according to the British Ministry, their aim was to commit acts of violence and murder in order to "pursue a horrific ethnic war".

The group is descended from another far-right group called the Atomic Weapons Squad.

Discord is a chat program used primarily by gamers to talk to each other while playing.

According to the source, the court document stated that the case included messages from the “Cooking Group” chat thread. Among the messages, the 15-year-old boy expressed that he had given considerable thought to the best way to recruit members for the Furkridge group, and that this would be done by finding young gamers who used the Discord chat and messaging program to communicate with them when they played computer games like Roblox. He said, “I have a friend who is interested in signing up. If we can find people, for example on Discord, who are already open-minded, we can radicalize them to the point where they stop making embarrassing slapstick.” He added, “I have always been a racist, but I must admit that I went through a long period before I became friends with a guy who put me on the right path.”.

“"Don't be afraid of prison."”
On January 10, the boy wrote that he was not afraid to go to prison if it had to come to that: “Danish prisons are nothing more than a free stay in a hotel,” he said. The next day, the boy uploaded a picture of a neck brace with a skeleton of the lower part of a skull, a knife, and Adolf Hitler’s book Mein Kampf.

According to the source, Central and West Zealand police declined to comment on the boy's Telegram posts. However, they confirmed that the boy had indeed received threats on March 1st due to his posts on an extremist forum. As for why he was arrested again on April 7th and subsequently remanded in custody, police declined to provide further details.

According to information from DR News, the General Intelligence Service was involved in the investigation after the initial arrest, and the PET has no comment on the boy's movements on Telegram.

“A truly violent right-wing nationalist speech.”
Christian Mogensen, a consultant specializing in pedagogy and an expert in internet culture and digital communities on the web, has seen excerpts of the Telegram chat and believes the tone is violent and “very disturbing to read.” He commented, “A young man who found an identity in being dangerous and Nazi and wanted to recruit others. The fires of youth burn very hard, and this means that this type of project can be set up very, very quickly because it is all done digitally.” He added, “It is—with all due respect—teenage nonsense and at the same time really violent right-wing nationalist rhetoric, where you mix peer talk and computer games with the speed at which you can best recruit for this far-right organization.” He describes the boy’s behavior on Telegram as very disturbing.

Christian Mogensen emphasizes that parents shouldn't worry that their children might end up having dark conversations if they use Discord to play with friends. He says, "There's no need to worry unless your child starts sniffing around in these environments. The easiest way to know is to build a relationship with your child where you talk about what's happening online, and if something happens, they'll want to turn to an adult. If we practice talking about the good things online, children also learn to be confident in their ability to talk to adults about all the bad things.".

According to Josh Lipovsky, during the coronavirus pandemic, FKD had plans to spread the disease among Black and Jewish people. In the United States, it is also believed that the group was planning to bomb a synagogue in Las Vegas. It never occurred to Josh Lipovsky that the group, which was not known until now in Denmark, had now appeared here in Denmark.

Source: Danish Radio website