Photos of Charleston killer found online with racist manifesto

New York, June 21 (IANS/EFE) The US media spread the news about a website found with photos of confessed mass murderer Dylann Roof along with a racist manifesto that he might have written.

According to the daily New York Times on Saturday, it is uncertain whether the manifesto was written by Roof, the confessed perpetrator of the fatal shootings in an African American church in Charleston, South Carolina.

The site is dubbed the "Last Rhodesian", a reference to the former British colony in Africa called Rhodesia until 1980, when it achieved independence under the name Zimbabwe and was never again ruled by a white minority.

The website includes a photo of Roof pointing a pistol at the camera, another in which he is armed and carrying a Confederate flag, and yet another in which he is seen burning an American flag.

In another picture, a .45-caliber Glock pistol is seen, the same kind that was used by Roof to kill nine people attending a church service in Charleston.

The website also provides access to a text in which the author expresses ideas of racial hatred.

In one of the last paragraphs, the author maintains that he chose Charleston for the shooting "because it is the most historic city in my state, and at one time had the highest ratio of blacks to Whites in the country".

He also regrets that in his region there are "no skinheads, no real KKK, no one doing anything but talking on the Internet".

"Well someone has to have the bravery to take it to the real world, and I guess that has to be me," he said.

The text is neither signed nor dated, but at the end the author, who describes himself as a "white nationalist" begs pardon for any typographical errors he might make, because, he said, "at the time of writing I am in a great hurry".

According to the Times, which, together with the New York Post, includes links to the site, the text was last modified at 4.44 p.m. last Wednesday, the same day Roof massacred nine black worshippers at the church in Charleston.

The same daily said the website was first registered on February 8 to Dylann Roof, a resident of Eastover, South Carolina, exactly the name and place of residence of the Charleston killer.

The following day the registration information was intentionally changed, though it has been checked by the Times.

The same daily said that one Jacob Meek, a friend of the killer, said that some of the references in the text indicate that the confessed murderer was the same person who wrote the racist manifesto and that he is convinced that the website is Roof's.

--IANS/EFE

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