Rioter 'linked to supremacists'
20/12/2005 08:12 - (SA)
Sydney - A security guard arrested after police investigating race riots in Sydney found an unlicensed pistol, smoke grenades and pepper spray at his home appeared in court on Tuesday and a prosecutor said he had links to white supremacists.
Andrew Sanders, 25, was arrested on Monday after police found the weapons in a raid on his Sydney home.
He also had been held on Sunday night allegedly with petrol and materials for making Molotov cocktails in the car he and four other youths were driving in.
During Sanders' appearance at Penrith local court in western Sydney, police prosecutor Jonathon Falzon said the security guard had logged onto a white supremacist website.
Falzon also said that when police stopped the car Falzon was riding in on Sunday night, it was tuned to a radio channel that a white supremacist group called Fightback had told supporters to monitor for updates on a protest in the aftermath of a race riot a week earlier.
Sanders has been charged with five counts of possessing a prohibited weapon without a permit, possessing an unauthorised pistol, and possessing a means of disguising his face with intent to commit an indictable offence.
He was not required to enter pleas.
"It's apparent that there are racial motivations behind what transpired there at Brighton," Falzon told the court.
He said a 25 litre drum of petrol, gloves, a first aid kit, a knife, utility belt, masks, police riot helmets and documentation relating to the Fightback website were found in the car.
Falzon called on magistrate Ian McRay to refuse to release Sanders on bail.
But defence lawyer Phil Gibson said the prosecution case was weak and denied Sanders was a white supremacist.
McRay was expected to make a decision on whether to release Sanders on bail later on Tuesday.
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