Italian police seized weapons, Nazi flags and photos of Mussolini from a far-right group: “They wanted to build a new fascist party”

Italian police said Thursday they found weapons, Nazi flags and photographs of dictator Benito Mussolini in the homes of members of a white supremacist movement. who were trying to build a new fascist party.

Officers searched the homes of 25 people belonging to the “Last Legion” group Thursday under suspicion of spread hatred on the Internet against Muslims, gays and Jews, police said.

Researchers they confiscated knives, ammunition, pistols Yes materials stored by members who they defined openly as “fascists” and advocated violence as a way to resolve the political conflict, according to a police statement.

“I always wear rings on my fingers and a baton. Now I also have a machete ”, read a message sent by a member of the Last Legion to another, intercepted by the police.

The racist propaganda Yes incitement to discrimination and violence for reasons racial, ethnic Yes religious they consisted of the publication, in various chats and on the web, of statements and memes which denied the Holocaust and celebrated the racial laws approved by the Mussolini regime. The hatred was directed not only against the Jewish people, but also against people of different ethnic origins, against Muslims and homosexuals.

The band members too they denied the existence of the coronavirus pandemic, calling it a plot by financial and religious lobbies, said to Reuters Eugenio Spina, head of the police branch dedicated to the fight against terrorism and extremism.

“They wanted to build a new fascist party”added.

The authorities also analyzed the organizational and propaganda meetings promoted by the Last Legion on the occasion of the Commemorations of Benito Mussolini organized periodically in Predappio, the dictator’s hometown, documented by photographs and statements published in the communities of the Ultima Legion and in public and freely accessible profiles as well as on the movement’s website.

From the investigative activity, it can be deduced that some members, openly calling themselves “fascists”, explicitly denigrated the values ​​of the Endurance and the Constitution with pejorative epithets.

The center of the organization was the area of Milan, but with well-established bases also in the provinces of L’Aquila, Pescara and Chieti, in the Abruzzo region. The organization also included “colorful” characters, such as a twenty-year-old who rose to prominence on social media for posting a video on YouTube in which he was celebrating Mussolini’s birthday wearing the uniform used by youth groups during the event.

Police said that made no arrests on Thursday, But I was investigation of two people for carrying unregistered weapons. Several women are also under investigation, one of whom is said to work at a school in the Aquila region and a man who was running for a councilor job in a town near Milan.

The investigation began in 2019 in the central Abruzzo region and then spread to all of Italy, targeting a total of 18 provinces from north to south, police said.

(With information from Reuters)

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