US Coast Guard officer and former marine accused of planning White nationalist-inspired large-scale domestic terrorist attacks is set for a detention hearing on Thursday, court documents revealed
WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 21st February, 2019) US Coast Guard officer and former marine accused of planning White nationalist-inspired large-scale domestic terrorist attacks is set for a detention hearing on Thursday, court documents revealed.
Last week, US Coast Guard Lieutenant Chris Hasson, 49, was arrested and charged with possession of firearms by an unlawful user of controlled substances. However, authorities have said evidence uncovered suggests the defendant was plotting large scale crimes inspired by the right-wing extremist ideology promulgated by Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik.
"The current charges... are the proverbial tip of the iceberg. The defendant is a domestic terrorist, bent on committing acts dangerous to human life that are intended to affect governmental conduct," Federal prosecutors argued in a document filed earlier this week. "The defendant intends to murder innocent civilians on a scale rarely seen in this country."
Law enforcement agents found 15 firearms and more than 1,000 rounds of mixed ammunition when they searched Hasson's apartment on February 15, the document said. According to the filing, federal authorities also found documents including disturbing emails written to himself.
"I am dreaming of a way to kill almost every last person on the earth," Hasson said in an email that was never sent. "I think a plague would be most successful but how do I acquire the needed/ Spanish flu, botulism, anthrax not sure yet but will find something."
The documents also revealed that Hasson in his planning appeared to follow instructions laid out in a manifesto written by the right-wing mass murderer Breivik. Authorities found a hit list that included dozens of Democratic congressional leaders and liberal news hosts. Hasson made several comments in the documents about hitting out at the "liberal-globalist" Western socities.
On July 22, 2011, Breivik bombed a government building in Oslo, killing eight people. On the same day, he traveled to a Norwegian Labor Party youth camp on the Utoya island dressed as a police officer. There, he fatally shot 69 people, most of whom were teenagers. Breivik's main motive for the attacks was to promote his far-right militant ideology. The mass murderer was sentenced to 21 years in prison for the attacks, which is the maximum sentence allowed under Norwegian law.
Hasson's detention hearing is scheduled for 1:00 p.m. local time (6:00 p.m. GMT) in a court in the US state of Maryland, the document said.
