Senior Nazi arrested (1)
01 January 1991
Senior Nazi arrested
artdoc July=1993
Eddie Whicker, a member of the National Front (NF) and recently
exposed as a leader of the violently fascist Combat 18 (C18), has
been arrested and charged with possessing firearms with intent
to endanger life. Whicker was arrested at the beginning of June
and did not apply for bail.
The arrest followed a police raid on the Crown and Cushion
public house in Perry Bar, Birmingham, where two men were
detained in possession of seven semi-automatic handguns and two
hundred rounds of ammunition. One of the men, named Mcrudden, had
Loyalist connections and is from Belfast, the other is from
Camden in North London. Whicker was picked-up by police in south
London the following day and charged.
Although based in London he has recently been spent a great
deal of time in the Midlands and in the April 1992 general
election he stood as the National Front candidate for Birmingham
Hodge Hill where he received 370 votes, slightly less than 1% of
the total. During May the television programme World in Action
exposed the recently formed fascist paramilitary outfit C18, in
which Whicker was revealed to be a key figure. The membership of
C18 is made up of familiar names, many of them associated with
the British National Party, and they have appeared in a public
role stewarding a series of meetings by revisionist historian
David Irving. They have also been involved in a series of
covert activities, attacking Black and community groups. These
included arson attacks on the Freedom Bookshop (the latest attack
took place at the end of May and caused considerable damage) and
the Morning Star newspaper in London. They have also targeted
newspaper sellers from the Anti-Nazi League, attacking them with
iron bars and causing several serious injuries.
The World in Action programme also alleged that C18 had
extensive contacts with the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), the
sectarian Loyalist paramilitary group that was recently banned
in northern Ireland, but is still legal in England. While
contacts between the far-right and Loyalists are well documented
- a large number of Loyalists turned-out to support a BNP attack
on a Bloody Sunday commemoration as recently as January -
evidence of more sinister gun-running activities have been harder
to come by.
Whicker's arrest offers confirmation of right-wing involvement
with Loyalist paramilitaries in their campaign of sectarian
assassination. It also raises questions about the direction in
which the weapons were moving given the extensive evidence of the
large quantities of weaponry reaching the Loyalists from South
African sources. (see Statewatch vol 3 no 2).
Times 2.6.93; Birmingham Evening Mail 4.6.93.
Statewatch vol 3 no 3 May-June 1993