BRITAIN: John Tyndall, the 72-year-old founder of the extreme-right British National Party (BNP), has been found dead at his home in southeast England, police said yesterday.
"His death is not suspicious," a spokesman for Sussex Police said.
Tyndall and current BNP leader Nick Griffin were facing charges of inciting racial hatred after the BBC secretly filmed a documentary that showed them making racist comments.
The men were arrested last December after the Secret Agent documentary showed BNP members boasting of assaulting Muslims.
The case was expected in court later this week.
Secretly recorded footage showed a BNP member expressing a wish to blow up mosques with a rocket launcher and to machine-gun worshippers with "about a million bullets".
Another member told how he put dog faeces through the letterbox of an Asian-owned shop, while a third described how he had beaten up a Muslim man.
Other footage included Griffin railing against the Koran.
The documentary brought furious reactions from the British government and the country's Muslims and undercut the BNP's efforts to cultivate a more moderate image.
A spokesman for the BNP said today that although Tyndall had been expelled from the party twice - in 2003, and again earlier this year after being readmitted - he was an "excellent chap with a keen analytical mind".
Tyndall was, according to party spokesman Dr Phil Edwards, sacked from the BNP for criticising the party leadership after he lost his position in 1999.
Dr Edwards said: "John was a great fellow who knew exactly what our movement was about. But it is fair to say that he was not able to carry that forward to electoral success."