A British white supremacist was convicted of preparing acts of terrorism on Thursday after attempting to purchase a firearm and ammunition from undercover officers.
Alfie Coleman, 21, paid £3,500 (about $4,730) for a pistol and roughly 200 rounds of ammunition before his arrest in September 2023. Prosecutors said Coleman admired Adolf Hitler as well as Thomas Mair, who murdered British lawmaker Jo Cox in 2016, according to Reuters.
Authorities found extremist materials on Coleman’s electronic devices, including manifestos by Dylann Roof, who killed nine Black worshippers in a South Carolina church in 2015, and Brenton Tarrant, who killed 51 Muslim worshippers in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2019.
Prosecutor Nicholas de la Poer told jurors at London’s Old Bailey that Coleman had written his own manifesto in diary form, including, “All people whom are not on our side must die.”
Coleman pleaded guilty to possessing the firearm and to 10 counts related to documents likely to be useful to terrorists, but denied preparing terrorist acts. A jury convicted him following a retrial. He is scheduled to be sentenced in July.
Police said Coleman had extensively consumed far-right extremist material online as a teenager, particularly during COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020.
Bethan David, head of counter-terrorism at the Crown Prosecution Service, described Coleman as “a dangerous man” who intended to carry out an attack to advance a racist, white supremacist ideology, Reuters reported.
The conviction comes one day after the Metropolitan Police declared a stabbing attack against two Jews in London “a terrorist incident.”
A 76-year-old and a 34-year-old were wounded. They are in stable condition.
The attack occurred in the heavily Jewish neighborhood of Golders Green.
“They suffered stab wounds in the attack and are now being looked after in hospital. Metropolitan Police officers responding to the incident were also attacked, leading to the tasering and arrest of a 45-year-old man,” Taylor said. “He was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder and remains in police custody.”
