Neo-Nazi leader arrested

Thomas Boutens, the leader of neo-Nazi group Blood Soil Honour and Loyalty – or Bloed, Bodem, Er en Trouw - has been arrested by federal police, five months after being sentenced. Boutens was caught in Hamont-Achel in Limburg province by a police team specialised in arresting criminals on the run.

Boutens was handed a five-year jail sentence in February, including one year suspended, after being found guilty on charges relating to planning terrorism aimed at destabilising Belgium. Although prosecutors had sought his immediate arrest after the trial, he had already gone into hiding.

Blood Soil Honour and Loyalty, whose other members were arrested in 2006, was found to have planned terror attacks targeting the National Bank and other institutions, plotting the assassination of a number of prominent politicians and conspiring to destabilise the Belgian state. It had even apparently managed to infiltrate the Belgian military and had amassed a large cache of guns and explosives.