In February 2020, Luxembourg’s police forces arrested an 18-year-old radicalised man in the town of Strassen, neighbouring the capital city. These last few days, his trial for several terror and weapons law charges took place in the 12th criminal chamber of the Luxembourg City Court: during the auditions, the press and public learned that one of his target was the 2020 edition of Eurovision.
The radicalisation of a Swedo-Luxembourger teenager
Alexander Holmberg, 23, was born in Sweden and grew up in Luxembourg. The investigations described during his trial revealed that a year spent living with his mother back in Sweden, in 2015-2016, led to his radicalisation. A conservative teenager at first, he ended up embracing a much more nationalist and neonazi ideology, encouraged by conversations with radicalised individuals online.
This led him to join far-right groups, being recruited into “The Base”, a fascist, neonazi organisation founded by an American called Rinaldo Nazzaro, who now resides in Saint-Petersburg. Nazzaro himself recruited Holmberg, who joined the Swedish cell of “The Base” in late 2019. He also joined an affiliated organisation called “The Green Brigade”, now believed to be inactive, and which advocated eco-fascism, an ideology recognising the reality of climate change but with the a fascist twist: an “ideal” of a pre-industrial, ethnically homogeneous and patriarchal land and lifestyle.
A few days after being recruited, he burnt down an empty mink farm in Sweden, along with a friend, Zeke Blomquist, for the Green Brigade. Both faced trial and were found guilty by a Swedish court.
Within these organisations, Holmberg shared his chemistry skills (training members on how to craft incendiary and explosive devices), helped recruiting new members and participated in the redaction of manifestos. The investigation on Holmberg’s online activities have shown both many signs of his ideological radicalisation (with many racist and fascist messages on online chats, forums, etc.) and of his experiments with explosives, which were presented by investigators in the trial earlier this month.
The home laboratory of Strassen
A foreign intelligence service tipped off the State Intelligence Service of Luxembourg (SREL) about Holmberg’s case. In its assessment of the case, the SREL judged that the young man represented an “immediate danger” and informed the anti-terror police forces, who arrested him on February 22, 2020, in his hometown of Strassen, the day he had returned from holidays in Sweden.
Police forces searched the house (where his father resided), and over multiple searches, found a plethora of chemical components (chlorine, acetone peroxide, nitroglycerin, as well as 15 litres of urine, from which chemicals used in explosives can be extracted) along with illegal weapons (swords, daggers, air guns, etc.) and a parcel full of nails, likely to be used as a bomb. A true laboratory, built in part in the garage, in part in the laundry room, and financed by his parents. Hundreds of pages of documentation on bomb-making were also found on his computer by the investigators.
An expert in explosives interrogated and cross-examined during the trial stated that videos of Holmberg filming himself while synthesising nitroglycerin showed an almost “professional” capacity, and that there was enough in the house to make the equivalent of a kilogram of TNT.
Eurovision and SAS as potential targets
The investigation showed that the parcel of nails may have been intended to be used against the Swedish airline SAS, which Holmberg despised due to its commercials showcasing the multicultural and ethnic diversity of Scandinavian countries. But a Google Docs file on his drives also hinted at a potential attack on Eurovision.
Titled “Fun time for Eurovision 2020 – For a better and less over-accepting future“, the document was shared with a Dutch individual considered an accomplice by the Luxembourg police. In the file, both men had plans for several angle of attacks on the event, which was due to be held in Rotterdam until it was eventually cancelled by the Covid crisis. With his chemistry skills, Holmberg seemed to favour chemical attacks: poisoning visitors with cyanide or ricin, or using chlorine gas to create panic in the crowds, distributing them via ventilation systems or even custom-built rockets. The two accomplices also planned on infiltrating security in order to block the venue’s exits. These were clearly meant to cause as many casualties as possible.
Awaiting a verdict
During his trial, Holmberg ended up admitting most of the facts, even confessing that “terror attacks were a real possibility” had the police not intervened. For his defence, he explained that this radicalised past was behind him. After nine months in prison, he was liberated in November 2020, pending trial, and studied chemistry in Stockholm. He said he wanted to join the pharmaceutical industry, and that he had now changed his mind, that his radicalisation was the act of a misguided youth who was yearning for approval and like-mindedness.
The prosecution disagreed, considering that his activities in the past few years, online and offline in Sweden, had not shown any real changes. As a result, the prosecutor asked the court to sentence him to 12 years of jail. The verdict is expected on November 27 of this year. As per Luxembourger law, the presumption of innocence applies until a final verdict is reached.
Do you fear the contest may still be the target of planned attacks such as these? Had you read about the case before? Tell us more in the comments below or on social media at @escxtra!
