PostedAugust 23, 2022, 8:42 PM
United StatesSentenced for wanting to kidnap the governor of Michigan
Two far-right activists wanted to kidnap Gretchen Whitmer because she had imposed Covid restrictions. The verdict has yet to be pronounced: they face life imprisonment.
The defendants reportedly monitored the area around Gretchen Whitmer’s vacation home and took photos of a bridge they planned to blow up as a diversion during the kidnapping.
AFP
Two far-right activists were convicted on Tuesday of plotting to kidnap Democratic Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer over anti-Covid restrictions she imposed in that US state.
A jury deliberated for eight hours before convicting the two defendants of conspiracy to commit kidnapping and use a weapon of mass destruction – a bomb, according to local newspapers “The Detroit News” and “Detroit Free Press”. The two men, who face a life sentence, were part of a group of far-right activists arrested in October 2020. Two other suspects were acquitted in April. And two others pleaded guilty, testifying against their accomplices.
In April, the jurors were unable to reach a unanimous verdict for the first two, presented as the ringleaders of the plot. They were therefore tried again in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Prosecutors say they were part of the Boogaloo movement, which unites both neo-Nazis and far-right anarchists around gun culture and wants to overthrow the government through civil war.
The defense accused the FBI of setting up the defendants
According to the indictment, they blamed the governor for being “a tyrant” because of the Covid restrictions and planned to remove her in order to subject her to a “trial”. They reportedly monitored the area around Gretchen Whitmer’s holiday home and took photos of a bridge they planned to blow up as a diversion during the kidnapping. The defense accused the federal police agents of having framed the defendants by infiltrating their group through informants and by developing the kidnapping project.
Governor Gretchen Whitmer hailed on Twitter a verdict “which proves that violence and threats have no place in politics, and that those who seek to divide us will be held to account”. “But we must also take a close look at the state of our political world,” she added, regretting the existence of “threats against the FBI”. Federal police have been the target of attacks since their search of Donald Trump’s home in Florida.
In 2020, the arrest of these activists illustrated the growing threat posed by the radical right militias, which was then confirmed during the assault on the Capitol, in Washington, on January 6, 2021, in which took part members of groups such as the Oath Keepers or the Proud Boys.
(AFP)