Chirac assassin bragged on neo-Nazi website

THE young neo-Nazi who tried to assassinate the French president warned of his plans to cohorts on a British extremist Internet site.

“Watch the TV This Sunday, I will be the star,” read a message posted on the Combat 18 Internet site. It was signed Maxime and posted on July 13.

On July 14 Maxime Brunerie pulled a rifle from a guitar case as President Jacques Chirac passed by during the Bastille Day military parade.

A shot rang out as spectators wrestled Brunerie to the ground.

Judicial officials decided yesterday Brunerie was unfit for questioning and would remain at a psychiatric hospital for at least a month. After his arrest, he became incoherent but officials said he told police he wanted to kill the president and “his goal was to end his life and have people talk about him”, Prosecutor Francois Cordier said.

A relative questioned by police said Brunerie was attracted by American supremacist movements and the British group C18, (Combat 18). Combat 18 is a far-right extremist group that takes its name from the first and eighth letters of the alphabet (A and H) the initials of Adolf Hitler.

Cordier confirmed Brunerie left a message on the internet, but did not name it. He said internet users alerted British authorities who transmitted the information to the French.

The message to Combat 18 was timed at 1401 BST on July 13. It ended “Death to zog,88.”

Zog reportedly stands for Zionist occupation government and 88 for Heil Hitler, with the numbers representing the eighth letters in the alphabet.

Investigators were looking at a computer seized at Brunerie’s home south of Paris, Cordier said.