A leader of the US supremacist group arrested on charges of riot

The leader of a white supremacist group from Southern California and two other members were arrested for inciting violence during protests in California and during a deadly riot in Charlottesville, Virginia. last year, prosecutors said Wednesday.

The arrests take place a few weeks after other members of the group were charged in Virginia for similar charges.

The leader of the Rise Above movement, Robert Rundo, was arrested Sunday at the Los Angeles International Airport after returning from Central America, said US Attorney's Office spokesman, Thom Mrozek.

Two others, Robert Boman and Tyler Laube, were arrested on Wednesday morning and Aaron Eason is still on the run, Mrozek said. All four are accused of traveling to incite or participate in riots. Rundo, Boman and Laube were all denied bail on Wednesday in Los Angeles federal court.

The information on the defendants' lawyers was not immediately found.

According to a complaint by the US Attorney's Office, the two men allegedly took measures to "incite, organize, promote, encourage, participate in or conduct riots".

"RAM members have violently attacked and badaulted counterparts" during events in Charlottesville and in the California cities of Huntington Beach, Berkeley and San Bernardino, according to an FBI affidavit accompanying the lawsuit.

Prosecutors have described the Rise Above movement as a group of white supremacist activists who adhere to anti-Semitic and racist views and meets regularly to train for boxing and other fighting techniques.

According to the Anti-Defamation League, members of the Rise Above movement believe they are fighting a "modern world" corrupted by the "destructive cultural influences" of liberals, Jews, Muslims and non-white immigrants. Members consider themselves to be the mixed martial arts club of the "alt-right" marginal movement, a loose mix of neo-Nazis, white nationalists and other extreme right-wing extremists.

"They work very well as a street fighting club," said earlier this month Oren Segal, director of the Center on Extremism of the ADL. The group has roots in the racist skinhead movement of southern California, said Segal.

The latest arrests took place a few weeks after the charge of four other California members of the RAM for allegedly instigating the Virginia riot.

In August 2017, they went to the "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville with their hands taped, "ready to fight," said American lawyer Thomas Cullen at a press conference announcing the charges earlier this month.

Hundreds of white nationalists descended on Charlottesville in protest of plans to retreat Confederate General Robert E. Lee's statue.

Clashes erupted on August 11 as a crowd of white nationalists marching on the campus of the University of Virginia, carrying torches and chanting racist slogans, met a small group of counter-protestors.

The next day, new violence erupted between the counter-candidates and the participants in the "Unite the Right" rally, supposedly the biggest gathering of white nationalists in at least a decade. Street fighting broke out before the start of the planned event and lasted nearly an hour in front of the police until the authorities force the crowd to disperse.

After the authorities forced the rally to separate on August 12, Heather Heyer, 32, was killed when a car robbed a crowd in the counter-protest crowd.

The death toll was raised to three when a state police helicopter that was watching the event crashed, killing two soldiers.