“Fun time for Eurovision 2020” was the name of the plan.
Alexander Holmberg would use highly explosive chemicals to poison the audience and performers at Eurovision 2020.
But the police got there first.
Now the Swede has been sentenced to prison and treatment for deradicalization in Luxembourg.
In the plan “Fun time for Eurovision 2020”, Swedish Alexander Holmberg went through in detail how he intended to poison artists and audience at Eurovision in Rotterdam.
This included using cyanide and ricin, but also highly explosive chemicals. At the time he was living in Luxembourg with his father and his father’s new wife.
He also planned to send a letter bomb to a Swedish production company.
But Luxembourg police were tipped off about the plans by the country’s intelligence service.
During a strike against Alexander Holmberg, they found a bomb workshop. The investigation showed that Holmberg, with his planned attack, wanted to trigger a “race war”.
THE ARTICLE IN BRIEF
Alexander Holmberg planned to poison the audience and performers at Eurovision 2020 with cyanide, ricin and explosive chemicals.
The police stopped the plans and found a bomb workshop in Luxembourg.
He admitted to making explosives, terror plots and membership in an extremist group.
Now he is sentenced to eight years in prison, of which six are suspended.
Holmberg’s own words
During the trial in Luxembourg, he admitted that he had made explosives in a bomb laboratory, that he had planned an attack and that he had been a member of a terrorist organization, according to the local newspaper Luxemburger Wort.
– Yes, I spread propaganda, incited violence and recruited new members.
Prosecutor David Lentz describes Holmberg as a young man with “internalized hatred”, who felt superior to everyone else and was capable of using violence.
– The only reason why the attacks did not occur is the rapid intervention of the police and intelligence services, he says according to the newspaper.
Alexander Holmberg is now being sentenced for participation in a terrorist organization and for violating weapons and explosives laws. The sentence will be eight years in prison, six of which will be suspended provided he participates in a deradicalization program. The prosecutor asked for 12 years in prison.
Wore Nazi symbols
Alexander Holmberg was already convicted in 2019 for burning down a mink farm in Blekinge and was linked to the now terror-classified group The Green Brigade. In photographs used in the police investigation into the arson, he is seen wearing Nazi symbols. In one picture he is wearing a Nazi uniform. In another, he wears a red armband with a swastika and poses in front of various weapons.
He was also considered to be connected to the terrorist-branded neo-Nazi group The base, according to SVT news.
The radicalization must have taken place when Holmberg lived with his mother in Sweden in the mid-2010s.
In a leaked recording obtained by SVT, you can hear how the Swede is being recruited to The base, where the leader Rinaldo Nazzaro says he is interested in the Swede building up a cell – in Sweden.
– We have a goal to initially create two- or three-man cells in as many areas as possible.
The conversation must have taken place just over four months before he was arrested for the terror plans against Eurovision.
Own words: “Distanced”
This summer, Alexander Holmberg claimed that he had left his violent past in a comment to SVT.
“I have distanced myself from this for several years and want to leave it behind. I have nothing to do with these hate groups and their views anymore,” he greeted via his lawyer.
