Michail Chkhikvishvili, 22, from Georgia, known as ‘Commander Butcher’, has been sentenced to 15 years in prison
The head of a neo-Nazi organisation has been handed a prison sentence for attempting to recruit members to carry out violent assaults against Jewish people and other ethnic minorities, including one sinister scheme which involved individuals disguised as Santa Claus distributing poisoned sweets to children.
Michail Chkhikvishvili, 22, hailing from Georgia, leads an Eastern European neo-Nazi outfit and operates under the alias ‘Commander Butcher’. He was handed a 15-year prison term by a federal judge in Brooklyn yesterday for his offences.
Chkhikvishvili had entered a guilty plea in November for soliciting hate crimes and disseminating instructions on manufacturing bombs and ricin.
Chkhikvishvili “repeatedly called for the murder of innocent civilians, including children, and schemed to attack and terrorise Jewish communities and racial minorities in the United States,” stated Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Eisenburg. ” Chkhikvishvili, for example, tried to recruit a supposed associate to dress up as Santa Claus and pass out poisoned candy to minority children.
“I acknowledge that my actions have brought harm by spreading hatred and violence and I’m truly sorry for that,” Chkhikvishvili wrote in a letter to the judge last month. His defence counsel, Zachary Taylor, appealed for a five-year term, referencing Chkhikvishvili’s mental health difficulties as a youngster, including depression and bullying, which resulted in him falling “under the spell of violent extremist content” on social media.
However, he noted that Chkhikvishvili has since turned over a new leaf. Taylor further contended that throughout his nearly year-long detention in Moldova, where Chkhikvishvili was apprehended in 2024 following an international warrant, he has endured severe conditions, reports the Mirror.
Prosecutors portrayed Chkhikvishvili as the ringleader of the ‘Maniac Murder Cult’, a global extremist organisation adhering to neo-Nazi beliefs that advocate violence designed to spark a racial and religious conflict. They stated the group’s violent incitements – disseminated via Telegram channels and detailed in the ‘Hater’s Handbook’ – seem to have motivated several actual killings.
Among these is a shooting in Nashville, Tennessee, last year which claimed the life of a 16-year-old pupil. Solomon Henderson, 17, left behind a recording following the Nashville Antioch High School shooting in which he credited his actions to the Maniac Murder Cult, which operates from Russia and Ukraine.
From 2021 onwards, prosecutors allege Chkhikvishvili circulated the ‘Hater’s Handbook’ to followers and others. In correspondence to the judge, Chkhikvishvili wrote: “I’m very ashamed [of] authoring Hater’s Handbook, hoping one day it will disappear, I wish I never wrote it.”
Prosecutors allege that Chkhikvishvili travelled to Brooklyn in 2022, where he subsequently began persistently urging others to carry out hate crimes and violent acts. They stated that in 2023 he solicited an undercover FBI employee to conduct bombings and arsons “for the purpose of harming racial minorities, Jewish individuals and others.”
In 2024, the undercover FBI operative was instructed to “target the Jewish community, Jewish schools, and Jewish children in Brooklyn with poison,” prosecutors stated. ” Chkhikvishvili sent detailed manuals about creating and mixing lethal poisons and gases, including ricin,” they further disclosed.
“The defendant is a hate-mongering menace who intended to hurt and kill children in the Jewish community and in other minority communities in New York City,” declared US Attorney Joseph Nocella. “Today’s sentence sends a strong message to hateful extremists, wherever you are, who seek to spread fear through unspeakable violence: we will find you and prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law.”
US District Judge Carol Bagley Amon handed Chkhikvishvili concurrent 180-month sentences on both counts, remarking: “The defendant is not sentenced because of his warped views. He is being sentenced for his calls to action.”
You must be logged in to post a comment Login