White nationalist who spoke at deadly Charlottesville rally arrested on kidnapping charges
A white nationalist who claimed during a Senate campaign to have drunk the blood of a slaughtered goat, and who spoke at a notorious neo-Nazi rally in Virginia, has been arrested on charges of kidnapping.
Augustus Sol Invictus, 36, was arrested by authorities while he was at a shopping mall in Brevard County, Florida.
His arrest warrant, issued by officials in South Carolina, related to charges of of domestic violence and kidnapping.
Officials in Florida described him as as an “out of state fugitive”.
Mr Invictus, a lawyer who legally changed his name from Austin Gillespie, was among the speakers at a white supremacist and neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in the summer of 2017.
The so-called Unite the Right rally, which saw people march with Nazi symbols and torches, erupted in violence amid clashes with protesters. The rally’s purported original intention was to highlight opposition to plans to remove a statue of onetime confederate icon Robert E Lee.
The Miami Herald said another white nationalist leader, Richard Spencer, credited Mr Invictus with writing the so-called Charlottesville statement that claimed, among things, that “whites alone defined America as a European society and political order”.
Violence at the event resulted in the murder of a young woman, Heather Heyer, who was among the anti-Nazi protesters, and who was fatally injured when 20-year James Fields slammed a car into a group of people.
Fields was last year sentenced to life in jail without the possibility of parole, after pleading guilty to more than two dozen charges.
1. NEW: White nationalist Augustus Sol Invictus, a lawyer who has described himself at different times as an emperor, a prophet and a god, was arrested Monday in Florida on suspicion of kidnapping, domestic violence and weapons violations. pic.twitter.com/wLKrhCCkHl
— Nick Martin (@nickmartin)
Donald Trump found himself at the centre of intense controversy after seeking to suggest there were “very fine people on both sides”.
In 2016, Mr Invictus failed in a Senate bid when tried to win the seat held by Marco Rubio.
The Herald said news of the arrest was first reported on Twitter by the journalist Nick Martin, who focuses on covering “hate and extremism”.
Jail records showed Mr Invictus was being held without bond and was due to appear before a judge on January 15.
Additional reporting by Associated Press
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