ADF member who trained with neo-Nazis allegedly caught with child abuse and extremist material

A member of the Australian Defence Force who attended training sessions with the neo-Nazi National Socialist Network was allegedly found with horrific child abuse and right-wing extremist material on devices stored at his Holsworthy Barracks accommodation.

Jonathan Salter, 25, was refused bail in the NSW Supreme Court this week, facing a series of charges over accessing and possessing child abuse and far-right extremist material after investigators allegedly found “extensive messages and files” showing his support for “white supremacy, Nazi ideology and violent extremism”.

Prosecutors also allege that Salter possessed multiple “exceptionally serious examples” of child abuse material, including children as young as one being horrifically abused.

According to court files obtained by this masthead, police allege that Salter repeatedly visited sites hosting the video of the Christchurch massacre in which 51 worshippers were murdered at two mosques in New Zealand by an Australian white supremacist.

Investigators allegedly found a series of edited videos of the massacre – which the gunman, Australian Brenton Tarrant, live-streamed – as well as the manifesto of Norwegian neo-Nazi terrorist Anders Breivik, who killed 77 people in a bomb attack and shooting spree in 2011.

Much of the content investigators allegedly found on Salter’s devices is too explicit to publish. In one, prosecutors allege segments of the Christchurch massacre are overlaid with a Rolling Stones song and references to the first-person shooter video game Call of Duty.

A voice-over states: “What happens when the soldier becomes the weapon”.

The extremist content allegedly found on Salter’s devices was ultra-violent in nature and depicted people being violently attacked alongside neo-Nazi slogans. One 13-second video depicted an explosion at a protest “followed by images of a Nazi swastika and partial footage from the Christchurch massacre”, prosecutors allege.

Salter, who was an apprentice carpenter in the ADF before his arrest, came to the attention of NSW Police when he attended a gathering of the Australian neo-Nazi group the National Socialist Network in November 2024. Police passed on his details to the ADF, who executed a search warrant at his Holsworthy Barracks accommodation in February last year and seized five phones.

The ADF then passed the investigation onto the Australian Federal Police. However, he was not charged until August last year.

Among the material allegedly seized by investigators were “various NSN propaganda documents” with white supremacist slogans, including a video recorded by the NSN figurehead Jacob Hersant in which he states that there will be an “accounting” for people who live like “cowardly cattle”.

However, despite training with the NSN on two occasions, Salter ultimately did not join. In one conversation, he complained the NSN was not moving in a “serious direction”.

“I quite (sic) the NS group bro unfortunately, my views haven’t changed though,” he allegedly wrote.

“Yeah just don’t have enough time and i think NS for australia is pretty hopeless tbh. It’s still a good idea to join NS if you wanna meet like minded people ... but i just don’t see the movement take a serious direction its just my opinion man.”

The material allegedly found on Salter’s devices showed a hatred of both Muslims and Jewish people. The devices contained anti-Islamic imagery taken from Breivik’s manifesto, for example, and despite his repeated viewing of the Christchurch massacre – Salter’s internet history contained searches such as “watchpeopledie christchurch” and “brenton tarrant letters” – he also complained Tarrant had not mentioned the Jewish people.

In one conversation, he claimed Muslim immigrants – who he referred to using a racist term – were “bioweapons used by the Jews” and that Tarrant “did not understand that the Jews orchestrated Muslim immigration”.

Salter was refused bail in the Supreme Court this week and is due to appear before the local court again in April. He is facing 13 charges of possession and distributing child abuse and accessing and possession of extremist material.

In submissions seeking bail, his lawyers argued there was “little risk of radicalisation” and no evidence to suggest Salter “has any current or recent ties to radical groups or terror groups”. They also said he had been diagnosed with autism.

However, prosecutors said there was “significant evidence” of Salter’s “adherence to a violent white supremacist ideology … with evidence of conversations as late as January 2025″.

“Given the extreme views held by the applicant over a period of at least three years, the passage of seven months is not sufficient to give the Court any confidence that [Salter] no longer adheres to this ideology,” prosecutors said in submissions opposing bail.

They also argued the “exceptionally serious example” of child abuse material alone showed the risk of Salter “committing further serious offences and endangering the safety of the community, including the sexual safety of children”.

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