On Friday, September 13, two people were arrested and charged with leading Terrorgram Collective, an online group of white supremacists that urged members to commit hate crimes and terrorist attacks. New details have emerged connecting this transnational terrorist group to the Slovakia shooting that took place at a queer bar in October 2022, resulting in the deaths of two people.

Dallas Erin Humber (34, of Elk Grove, California) and Matthew Robert Allison (37, of Boise, Idaho) were charged with leading Terrorgram Collective on the messaging app Telegram. The charges include soliciting hate crimes, attacks on government infrastructure, and the murder of government officials.

According to the 37-page indictment, the pair also allegedly conspired to provide material support to domestic and international racist and anti-LGBTQ+ individuals and groups via the Telegram platform. They allegedly used the group to distribute materials for bombs, send lists of potential assassination targets, provide instructions for planning and executing terrorist attacks and encourage others to carry out their own.

The Terrorgram Collective promoted a white supremacist accelerationism ideology, which holds that the white race is superior and society is corrupt. According to the US Department of Justice, their ultimate goal is to use “violence and terrorism” to “ignite a race war and accelerate the collapse of the government and the rise of a white ethnostate.”

Humber and Allison joined the group in 2019, and assumed leadership in 2022, after one of Terrorgram Collective’s leaders was arrested on terrorism charges.

As prosecutors allege, multiple attacks planned and carried out in past years could be tied to this terrorist group, including the Slovakia shooting that occurred outside a Bratislava queer bar in 2022, which authorities had reclassified as an act of hate-inspired terrorism. The attack resulted in the death of Juraj Vankulič, a non-binary person, and Matúš Horváth, a bisexual man.

Juraj Krajčík, the 19-year-old shooter who carried out the attack, was reportedly an active member of the Terrorgram Collective. Prior to the shooting, Krajčík wrote a manifesto in which he listed the writings of Terrorgram leaders in his recommended reading section and thanked the former leader of the group.

“Thank you for your incredible writing and art, for your political texts; for your practical guides,” Krajčík wrote. “Building the future of the White revolution, one publication at a time.”

As the indictment claims, in the year leading up to the Slovakia shooting, Humber repeatedly encouraged Krajčík and others in the group to commit acts of murder and terrorist attacks. The shooter was also included in a so-called “saints encyclopedia”, a document listing 105 killers from the past 50 years who committed racist and homophobic murders, revered as “saints” by the group.

Humber allegedly wrote in a July 2022 post: “If you become a Saint I’d narrate your book. That’s the cost of admission, so to speak”. Humber reportedly later clarified, “Dead targets or I don’t care.”

The day after the Slovakia shooting took place, the leaders of the terrorist group posted a “New Saint Announcement” to honour Krajčík and his actions. “October 12, 2022 – a new Saint arose in Bratislava, Slovakia. The absolute madlad [Krajčík], became Saint 6th Disciple, and Terrorgram’s very first Saint,” Humber reportedly wrote in the post.

“He released his manifesto online before shooting up an LGBT coffee shop, killing 2 f*gs and injuring a waitress, before escaping,” the post continued, before encouraging followers to read the manifesto. “Saint Krajčík’s place in the Pantheon is undisputed, as is our enthusiastic support for his work,” the post added.

The indictment further explains that Humber and Allison later released the audiobook of Krajčík’s manifesto and made him the focus of an edition of the group’s periodical, celebrating him as a “self-radicalized accelerationist” and “Terrorgram’s first saint.”

Humber and Allison now face 15 federal counts, including one count of conspiracy, four counts of soliciting hate crimes, three counts of soliciting the murder of federal officials, three counts of doxing federal officials, one count of threatening communications, two counts of distributing bombmaking instructions, and one count of conspiring to provide material support to terrorists. If convicted of all charges, they face up to 220 years in prison.

In a statement announcing the indictment, Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said: “Today’s indictment charges the defendants with leading a transnational terrorist group dedicated to attacking America’s critical infrastructure, targeting a hit list of our country’s public officials, and carrying out deadly hate crimes – all in the name of violent white supremacist ideology.”

Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said: “This indictment charges the leaders of a transnational terrorist group with several civil rights violations, including soliciting others to engage in hate crimes and terrorist attacks against Black, immigrant, LGBT, and Jewish people.”

Earlier in August, Telegram’s chief executive, Pavel Durov, was arrested in relation to an investigation into the app’s lack of moderation. Durov is accused of failing to take appropriate steps to prevent criminal uses of Telegram. The app is further accused of failure to cooperate with law enforcement over a number of issues, including drug trafficking, child sexual content and fraud.