US federal prosecutors indicted a Georgian national who heads an extremist group called ‘Maniac Murder Cult’. They accused him of planning mass attacks against Jews and other minorities in New York City.
Michail Chkhikvishvili, also known as „Commander Butcher,” had planned to distribute poisoned candy to children at Jewish schools in Brooklyn and other attacks against minorities, reports The Times of Israel.
Chkhikvishvili is the leader of a white supremacist extremist group known as the Maniac Murder Cult or MKY. MKY is an international, violent extremist group that adheres to a neo-Nazi ideology that promotes violence against Jews and others. The group is based in Russia and Ukraine and has members in the United States and other countries.
This is the fourth time he has been indicted at the federal Eastern District Court of New York in Brooklyn. On July 6, he was arrested in Chișinău, Moldova, on an Interpol arrest warrant.
Chkhikvishvili wrote and distributed a manifesto titled the „Hater’s Handbook” that advocates MKY’s goals and encourages members to carry out and film violent acts. In the document, Chkhikvishvili claims to have „murdered for the white race” and calls for ethnic cleansing and violence, including school shootings, using children for suicide bombings and mass terror attacks against crowds, specifically in the United States.
He travelled to the US in July 2022. Since then, Chkhikvishvili encouraged others, primarily through encrypted messaging platforms, to commit violence for MKY in New York and elsewhere. The messages include footage of beatings, stabbings and other attacks, as well as efforts to recruit followers who have experience with explosives and biological and chemical weapons. Prosecutors shared images from the group showing men in Nazi uniforms and a masked individual holding a bloody axe next to a swastika.
According to US Attorney Breon Peace, „the defendant sought to recruit others to commit violent attacks and killings in furtherance of his Neo-Nazi ideologies. His goal was to spread hatred, fear and destruction by encouraging bombings, arson, and even poisoning children for the purpose of harming racial minorities, the Jewish community and homeless individuals.”
Chkhikvishvili’s targeting of Jews included handing out poisoned candy dressed as Santa Claus to children at Jewish schools. „Jews are literally everywhere”. He suggested an attack on „some Jewish holiday” at a „Jewish schools full of kids.” Chkhikvishvili also discussed targeting Jews in the US with the leader of another neo-Nazi group called the Feuerkrieg Division, or FKD.
„I’m working in rehab centre privately in Jewish family // I get paid to torture dying jew // I think I almost killed him today actually // If he dies soon that’s killstrike on me,” Chkhikvishvili wrote. He also sent images of his purported victim in a hospital bed.
Chkhikvishvili was charged with conspiracy to solicit violent felonies, solicitation of violent felonies, distribution of information pertaining to the making and use of an explosive device, and transmission of threatening communications.
Photo credit: Kena Betancur/AFP via Getty Images via The Times of Israel
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