Neo-nazi who posted picture of Prince Harry with gun to his head and called him 'race traitor' for marrying Meghan jailed for 4 years
Michal Szewczuk, a 19-year-old who posted a picture of Prince Harry on social media with a gun to his head against a blood spattered background which also featured a swastika, has been charged with two counts of encouraging terrrorism and five counts of possession of terrorist material. He has been sentenced to four years and three months in a young offender institution.
Szewczuk, from Bramley, Leeds, UK, had also called Harry a 'race traitor' for marrying Meghan Markle, Daily Mail reported. Another man, 18-year-old Oskar Dunn-Koczorowski, was also charged along with Szewczuk for encouraging terrorism by posting images or links to Gab - a social media platform notorious for attracting proponents of extreme far-right ideologies.
Prosecutor Naomi Parsons told the court that his posts "convey a message of the threat of and/or use of serious violence against others, in order to advance a political, ideological and racial cause (neo-Nazism) and in this way encourage terrorism."
She also told the court that the target of such posts included those who were "perceived to be complicit in the perpetuation of multi-culturalism", which meant that the threats extended to Jews, and other non-white population as well.
Adam Morgan, Szewczuk's lawyer, argued that the image of Prince Harry that he posted was "obviously distasteful" but it was just "a pictorial representation of the underlying ideology, that is namely racial purity, rather than being a specific instruction to commit a terrorist act."
The judge responded by saying, "The point here is that it is criminal - it advances violence. It encourages terrorism."
Szewczuk was arrested in December last year and pleaded guilty of having in possession documents like White Resistance Manual and the al Qaida Manual.
Dunn-Koczorowski's defense lawyer, David Kitson, put forward the view that there is scope for an engagement with the youth despite the fact that he is completely unrepentant of his acts. He said to the court, "I am not going to pretend to the court that his political views have changed - they have not. Whatever he says about whether he is willing to change his mind, this is a young man who formed these views when he was fifteen or sixteen and there must be, in my submission, scope for engaging with him."
Dunn-Koczorowski had previously violated the terms of his bail by creating an Instagram page which featured the neo-Nazi term, 'Universal Order' to which the judge asked "What is he doing even mentioning the foundation of the organisation behind fascism?"
The judge said that “You still hold deeply entrenched views in support of this extreme rightwing ideology,” as he sentenced Dunn-Koczorowski to an 18-month detention and training order.