Politics Italian neo-Nazis talked about attack on Meloni

According to media reports, the Italian neo-Nazi group called the "Werewolf Division", which was broken up in a nationwide raid, may have had plans to attack Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. The suspects had discussed this in tapped chats, the Ansa news agency reported, citing the authorities.

The allegations against the suspects in the cell include "preparing serious attacks", including against Meloni. According to the newspaper "La Repubblica", they spoke in the chats about an attack against "the Prime Minister", but without explicitly mentioning Meloni's name.

In the early morning, twelve suspected members of the group were arrested in a large-scale police operation. During searches, the forces seized firearms, knives and right-wing propaganda. They are said to have been planning a coup to establish an authoritarian state with an "Aryan ethnicity", according to the Italian authorities.

Those arrested are primarily charged with membership of a terrorist organization. The public prosecutor's office in Bologna spoke of a well-organized cell that was already capable of carrying out attacks. This would have been carried out using so-called lone wolves - i.e. individual perpetrators, as used by Islamist terrorist groups.

SDA