Denmark/UK: Danish nazis send letter bombs to UK
01 January 1997
Five members of a Danish nazi group, which has links to the British fascist organization Combat 18 (C18), were arrested on Saturday 19 January. During a raid on an apartment a police officer was shot and wounded by its owner, Thomas Derry Nakaba. He and four other nazis are charged with producing and sending at least three letterbombs to targets in the UK. Nakaba is also charged with shooting the police officer.
The Danish nazi movement has, in recent years, adopted a strategy of organizing marches, running a radio-station and publishing magazines. In September 1995, in Roskilde 30 km from Copenhagen, the Danmarks Nationalsocialistiske Bevaegelse (DNSB) planned to march through the centre of town to honour the German nazi-leader Rudolf Hess. The march attracted support from nazi groups in Germany, the UK and Sweden. One of the most violent participants was Nakaba who was filmed throwing bottles and stones at onlookers and counter-demonstrators. The nazis were - after attacks on bypassers and clashes with anti-fascists - chased out of town.
Also at the Roskilde rally was C18 organiser Wilf Browning. Browning is currently involved in a violent dispute with former colleague and C18 leader, Charlie Sargent, over control of the Blood and Honour music organisation. At stake is the income it raises for Combat 18 (or at least their leaders). While the outcome of this infighting is unclear it is understood that Browning has seized control of the organisation and expelled Sargent. The situation is further complicated by a related split within Blood and Honour and the formation of a new nazi music outfit, the British Hammerskins. Both Blood and Honour and the British Hammerskins have extensive links to the Scandinavian nazi music scene.
In Denmark, Jonni Hansen, chairman of the DNSB, condemned the letterbomb attacks, saying that such tactics are not right - at least for the time being. He admitted to knowing Nakaba but claimed that he had not had any contact with him since the Roskilde demonstration. Journalists and researchers who follow developments in the Danish nazi movement believe that this is less than truthful. They suspect that Hansen may have adopted a twin-track strategy running on the one hand, a "legitimate" organisation while, on the other, using covert units who appear to be independent to attack migrants and asylum seekers. One of the nazis arrested with Nakaba is charged with setting fire to a black woman's flat on New Years night 1996/97.
The arrests came after the Danish police received a tip-off from Interpol in Wiesbaden that the British police supected the Danish nazis were planning something. They followed Nakaba as he travelled from his home in Nivaa, north of Copenhagen, to the Swedish city of Malmo, just across the strait between Denmark and Sweden. Here he posted at least three letterbombs containing detonators. Other devices are reported to have been intercepted.
According to Danish police sources the intended recipients of the three letterbombs intercepted in Sweden were the British athlete, Sharron Davies, Anti-Fascist Action in London and the mailbox of Combat 18. A fourth device, which is understood to have been detonated in a controlled explosion at Gartcraig Royal Mail delivery office in Glasgow, was destined for the Highlander magazine. This is run by Steven Cartwright, a former British National Party election candidate and Blood and Honour organiser in Scotland. Cartwright was targeted after abandoning Blood and Honour and siding with their opponents on the nazi music-scene, and renaming his magazine.
The Cartwright device has also raised questions about the role of the British police who have infiltrated C18 at the highest levels. It is clear they knew about the letter bombs in advance but decided not to act until after the event, despite the potentially lethal consequences. This latest incident is merely the most recent in a string of violent C18 activities that have b