Son of WA Police ~versus~ Combat 18

There has been alot said about C18 over the years, but at the end of the day we are still the most powerful and ruthless organisation the world has ever seen.

Um…

The trial of alleged neo-Nazi sympathiser and former WA policeman Robert Critchley began today in Perth, and according to news reports state prosecutor David Dempster “told the court’s jury that Mr Critchley made a 66-second call from Stirling Street in Perth to Murray Holmes, a friend of Mr Hort, on January 15, 2010”.

The call was made allegedly so that Holmes could inform his kameraden (Mr) Jacob Marshall Hort (above, centre) that he and the other members of his neo-Nazi group “Combat 18” (18=AH=Adolf Hitler) were under police surveillance.

You may remember Murray Holmes from such bands as Skrewdriver and The Quick & the Dead. In October 2007, Q&TD came to Melbourne to play a neo-Nazi gig at at the Melbourne Croatia Social Club in Sunshine. (See also : A Brief History Of Neo-Nazi Music In Australia, December 2, 2010.) You may remember Jacob Marshall Hort from such incidents as the shooting at a Perth mosque in February, 2010, conducted by and on behalf of C18. Indeed, “when police seized Mr Critchley’s mobile phone, they found a list of contacts to white supremacist groups including Blood and Terror, Terror Machine, Combat 18, Lone Wolf and The Way Forward, Mr Dempster said”.

Er, OK. Although maybe “Blood and Terror” is meant to refer to “Blood and Honour”; and while “Terror Machine” is another term for “Combat 18”, I ain’t never heard of “Lone Wolf” or “The Way Forward”. So, while they may conceivably refer to specific groups, the terms may more likely apply as more general concepts within the neo-Nazi and white supremacist milieu…

*shrugs*

In any event, C18 in Perf done a website, terrormachine.net (which they took over from the Norwegian franchise in February 2009). The site was regoed to Hort using a pseudonym.

Since the episode of Fun with Firearms outside the mosque, C18 has more or less collapsed, tho’ some remain in close contact with members of another neo-Nazi group in Sydney known as Volksfront. In late 2010, Volksfront activist Chris Smith received a suspended sentence for the crimes of assault and robbery (committed in 2009) and has used the time since to promote neo-Nazism by way of a muzak distro and to fight Teh Enimy by way of the antiantifaaustralia blog(s).

WA police and state authorities are presumably mindful of the history of groups such as Jack van Tongeren’s Australian Nationalists Movement, which in the 1980s attempted to start a racial war in WA by terrorising Perth’s Asian and Jewish communities (as well as various, largely student-based anti-racist organisations). The ANM’s bizarre and violent campaign ended as such things generally do: in murder, recrimination, and a documentary film. A further attempt to revitalise post-imprisonment Tongeren’s political career by way of a campaign of vandalism by members of a much younger group known as the White Devils in 2004 also ended in tears (and prison sentences: “the graffiti campaign included spray painting the slogans “Jews out” and references to six million at a synagogue and food mart in Menora and messages including “we will bomb you all” at a Chinese restaurant in Southlands. Posters put up featured messages including “The ANM Story, read it now” and “Jack’s back”).

For background infos, see : WA Police ~versus~ Combat 18 (January 20, 2011).

See also : White supremacists ‘tipped off’ by officer, Christian Jones, The West Australian, November 29, 2011 | Cop allegedly tipped off white supremacist, AAP, Herald Sun, November 29, 2011.