Capitol rioter wearing ‘Camp Auschwitz’ shirt is arrested

The rioter seen wearing a ‘Camp Auschwitz’ T-shirt during the storming of the US Capitol last week has been arrested.

Robert Keith Packer, 56, was detained in Virginia a week after he was pictured as part of a mob of Donald Trump supporters that rampaged through the seat of American democracy, angry at what they see as a “stolen” election.

Wearing the grossly offensive shirt, his image was broadcast around the world by ITV News as he posed next to other rioters who held aloft the broken nameplate from Democrat Nancy Pelosi’s office.

His attire carried the words ‘Camp Auschwitz’ followed by the words ‘Work Brings Freedom’. This is a translation of ‘Arbeit Macht Frei,’ the Nazis’ ironwork slogan that greeted more than a million Jews herded into Auschwitz-Birkenau, falsely assuming that it was a labour camp. Most were killed the day they arrived.

Packer was charged with “violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds” and “knowingly entering or remaining in any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority”. He was bailed before his next court appearance on Tuesday.