A MAN arrested after six kids were rescued from a cellar in a remote village in Austria has been pictured for the first time.
Conspiracy theorist and alleged Holocaust denier Tom Landon was seized by police after reportedly attacking social workers with pepper spray in the Austrian village of Obritz.
Conspiracist Tom Landon has been arrested by Austrian cops[/caption]
Cops stormed a property in the Austrian village of Obritz[/caption]
A woman and six kids were discovered living in a wine cellar under the property along with several guns.
It is reported that the eight had been living in the cellar for the past nine months.
Officials believe they were living in a network of tunnels underneath Obritz, a tiny village some 60 miles north of the Austrian capital Vienna, close to the border with the Czech Republic.
The 54-year-old was, until recently, working in IT in London, The Times reported, quoting Austrian officials.
Government officials were tipped off by neighbours, who claimed they had heard children’s voices coming from the building, which had a number of CCTV cameras.
However, whenever anyone approached the building, it went suddenly quiet.
After Landon allegedly attacked the two officials with pepper spray during a routine inspection, cops were called.
When they stormed the cellar, they found Landon barricaded inside along with a 40-year-old woman and six children, aged between seven months and five years.
Several guns were also discovered in the cellar.
Both Landon and the woman were released after being questioned by authorities, but all of the children living at the property have reportedly been taken into care.
He is believed to be a “doomsday prepper”, where one builds their life around preparing for a “major disaster or cataclysmic event”.
Landon had reportedly self-published a number of books denouncing Austria’s government.
One of his books, Rote Sau, meaning Red Sow and published in 2019, gave his address as East Finchley in north London.
Other book titles in German translated as The Judas Principle and Dirty Justice.
Erich Greil, the deputy mayor of Obritz, told The Sunday Times: “He’s not from here and has only been [in] Obritz for a short time.
“Before that, he apparently lived in England. I think he worked in the IT sector.”
Landon has ties to the Austrian branch of the far-right German Reichsburger movement, which embraces a number of conspiracy theories.
The right-wing extremist movement believes that the German empire still exists as it did prior to World War II.
