Federal prosecutors in Texas have, for the first time, filed terrorism charges targeting antifa, according to Kash Patel, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
The charges, announced on Thursday, cite United States President Donald Trump’s recent designation of the far-left movement as a terrorist organisation.
Cameron Arnold of Dallas and Zachary Evetts of Waxahachie, Texas, were charged on Wednesday with providing support to terrorists for their alleged role in the nonfatal shooting of a police officer at an immigration detention facility. Both were arrested in July with eight others and charged with attempted murder and weapons offences.
None of the defendants has entered a plea in the case, court records show, but Arnold and Evetts are set to do so at an October 22 court hearing.
Arnold’s lawyer, Cody Cofer, said in an email he looks forward to defending his client at trial.
Evetts’s lawyer, Patrick McLain, said his client is innocent and accused prosecutors of adding the terrorism charges for political reasons.
“I have seen no evidence from the prosecutors to support any of the charges,” McLain told the news agency Reuters.
In a post on social media, Patel wrote: “First time ever: the FBI arrested Antifa-aligned anarchist violent extremists and terrorism charges have been brought for the July 4 Prairieland ICE attack in Texas,” Patel said on social media.
Arnold and Evetts were charged with supporting terrorists generally, not the legally distinct charge of supporting a terrorist organisation.
Trump and his Republican allies have accused antifa followers of fomenting political violence following the September assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk and amid protests against federal immigration authorities in cities including Los Angeles, Chicago, and Portland, Oregon.
Trump signed an executive order in September calling antifa a “terrorist” organisation, although some national security law experts said the designation was legally questionable because antifa, short for “antifascist”, has no official leadership or organisational structure.
In an indictment filed in Texas federal court on Wednesday, prosecutors allege that Arnold and Evetts were part of an antifa “cell” that carried out a July 4 attack on a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facility in Alvarado, Texas.
There had been no mention of antifa in the original charging documents or accompanying announcement by prosecutors.
Prosecutors said the alleged attackers at the Prairieland Detention Facility shot fireworks and vandalised cars before an unnamed co-conspirator allegedly opened fire on officers defending the site, striking a local police officer in the neck.
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