LONDON (AA) – The alleged killer of a British opposition lawmaker had links to a racist organization in the United States, according to an Alabama-based civil rights group.
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) published records showing Thomas Mair, the 52-year-old man widely named in U.K. media in connection with Thursday’s shooting of Jo Cox, was a supporter of the U.S. white supremacist National Alliance (NA).
Receipts published by the center on its website showed that between 1999 and 2003, Mair sent $620 to the National Alliance for books and periodicals, including such titles as Chemistry of Powder & Explosives and Improvised Munitions Handbook.
Jo Cox, a Labour Party lawmaker, died after being shot and stabbed in the street of her electoral district. Some witnesses reported hearing the male attacker shout “Britain first” or “Put Britain first,” a possible reference to the far-right anti-immigration political party Britain First.
But other witnesses to the attack said they did not hear those words, and Britain First denied any involvement.
West Yorkshire Police confirmed they had arrested a 52-year-old man in connection with Cox’s murder but did not name him.
“We are not looking for anyone else in connection with this incident at this time,” police chief Dee Collins said at a press conference on Thursday.
The National Alliance, described by the SPLC as “the once premier neo-Nazi organization in the United States,” was founded by the late William Pierce.
Pierce’s novel The Turner Diaries, a fictional account of how a truck-bombing by white supremacists helps trigger a revolution, was thought to have inspired Timothy McVeigh ahead of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.
