{"id":348746,"date":"2026-03-26T11:49:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T11:49:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/348746\/"},"modified":"2026-03-26T11:49:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T11:49:09","slug":"nz-born-neo-nazi-leader-to-stand-trial-for-australian-camp-attack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/348746\/","title":{"rendered":"NZ-born neo-Nazi leader to stand trial for Australian camp attack"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Neo-Nazi leader <a href=\"https:\/\/www.1news.co.nz\/2025\/09\/04\/luxon-says-nz-born-neo-nazi-tom-sewell-is-an-australian-citizen\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Thomas Sewell<\/a> has been committed to stand trial over an alleged attack on an Aboriginal protest site.<\/p>\n<p>Sewell, 33, beamed into Melbourne Magistrates Court via video link on Thursday morning after being charged over the Camp Sovereignty incident. <\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s alleged Sewell led the group that stormed the site after an anti-immigration protest in the Melbourne city centre in August.<\/p>\n<p>The men, dressed in black, allegedly held down occupants of the Indigenous camp before kicking and punching them.<\/p>\n<p>Three people were injured, with one woman requiring staples in her scalp to close a wound, the court was previously told.<\/p>\n<p>Sewell on Thursday formally pleaded not guilty to five charges relating to the incident, including violent disorder, affray and unlawful assault.<\/p>\n<p>He was originally charged with more than 20 offences but prosecutors withdrew most of the charges during Thursday&#8217;s hearing.<\/p>\n<p>Magistrate Donna Bakos found the evidence against Sewell was of a sufficient weight to support a conviction. <\/p>\n<p>Sewell only spoke briefly to confirm his plea of not guilty before he was committed to stand trial in the Victorian County Court. <\/p>\n<p>Co-accused Nathan Bull appeared in court where he too pleaded not guilty to offences of violent disorder, affray, assault by kicking and failing to state his name or address.<\/p>\n<p>Bakos also committed Bull to trial and extended the two men&#8217;s bail to a County Court directions hearing date in April.<\/p>\n<p>Fellow accused Timothy Holger Lutze, Augustus Coolie Hartigan and Ryan Williams will each contest their charges in a Magistrates Court committal hearing set down for May.<\/p>\n<p>Blake Cathcart, who was also charged over the alleged campsite attack, has pleaded guilty to charges of violent disorder and assault with a weapon.<\/p>\n<p>He will face a plea hearing in the County Court in August.<\/p>\n<p>There are a further seven co-accused who are either contesting the charges at a committal hearing or at trial in the County Court, while Jaeden Johnson pleaded guilty in February. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Neo-Nazi leader Thomas Sewell has been committed to stand trial over an alleged attack on an Aboriginal protest&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":348747,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[85,67,42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-348746","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-australia","9":"tag-crime-and-justice","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-top-news","13":"tag-top-stories","14":"tag-topnews","15":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=348746"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348746\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/348747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=348746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=348746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=348746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}