Nazi-inspired trio jailed for planning terrorist attacks on mosques and synagogues in UK

Islamic centre in Leeds was among intended targets of online extremist group

Marco Pitzettu, Brogan Stewart, and Christopher Ringrose, who have been jailed for planning terrorist attacks. Photo: Counter Terrorism Policing North East

Three neo-Nazis were jailed on Friday for a total of 29 years for planning terrorist attacks on mosques and synagogues.

Christopher Ringrose, 35, Marco Pitzettu, 25, and Brogan Stewart, 25, – who are not believed to have met in the real world before they appeared together in the dock – were preparing to use more than 200 weapons they had amassed, including machetes, swords, crossbows and an illegal stun gun, Sheffield Crown Court heard.

Ringrose had also 3D-printed most of the components of a semi-automatic firearm at the time of his arrest and was trying to get the remaining parts.

On Friday, Stewart was jailed for 11 years, Ringrose for 10 years and Pitzettu for eight years by a judge who said she believed they all continued to adhere to their extreme right-wing ideology.

The judge, Mrs Justice Cutts, outlined how the online group the trio belonged to were preparing for an attack on an Islamic Education Centre in Leeds, in northern England, before they were arrested by counterterrorism police.

In May, a jury rejected claims the defendants were fantasists with no intention of carrying out their threats and found Ringrose, of Cannock, Staffordshire, Pitzettu, of Mickleover, Derbyshire, and Stewart, of Tingley, Wakefield, West Yorkshire, guilty of a charge of preparing acts of terrorism and charges of collecting information likely to be useful to a person preparing or committing an act of terrorism.

Ringrose was also convicted of manufacturing a prohibited weapon.

The nine-week-long trial heard how the defendants formed an online group called Einsatz 14 in January 2024, with “like-minded extremists” who wanted to “go to war for their chosen cause”.

The judge said she believed each of the defendants would be dangerous after their release from prison and gave them extended sentences, with additional licence periods.

She said the trio’s ideology was “laid bare” in a 374-page dossier of internet activity put before the jury.

The judge said: “These pages were filled with hate towards black and other non-white races, especially Muslim people and immigrants, with ideas of white supremacy and racial purity together with a belief that there must soon be a race war.”

She said this was coupled with the “glorification and admiration of the policies and actions of Hitler and the German Nazi Party, including antisemitism, and of mass killers who had targeted black or Muslim communities.”

The judge said she did not believe a terrorist attack was “imminent” and the group had not decided exactly what they were going to do.

She said: “Mercifully your plans and preparations were being monitored and were ultimately thwarted by the authorities.

“For that reason, they did not advance as far as I am satisfied they would otherwise have done.

“I do however find that a terrorist attack was likely in the not too distant future.”