PanARMENIAN.Net
German court sentences Ernst Zundel to 5 years in prison for Holocaust denial
15.02.2007 18:45 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Far-right activist Ernst Zundel was convicted of 14
counts of incitement Thursday for Holocaust denial and sentenced to
the maximum five years in prison. Zundel, 67, who was deported from
Canada in 2005, was accused of years of anti-Semitic activities,
including denying the Holocaust – a crime in Germany – in documents
and on the Internet.
Zundel and his supporters have argued that he is a peaceful campaigner
who has been denied his right to free speech. Zundel has been a
prominent white supremacist and Holocaust denier since the 1970s.
Among other ventures, he ran Samisdat Publishers, a leading
distributor of Nazi propaganda based in Canada. He also provided
content to The Zundelsite website, which has followers around the
world, hundreds of whom have protested his detention.
Zundel was born in Germany in 1939. He immigrated to Canada in 1958
and lived in Toronto and Montreal until 2001. Canadian officials
rejected his attempts to obtain citizenship in 1966 and 1994. Upon
arrival in Toronto, Zundel was arrested and held in detention until a
judge ruled in March 2005 that his activities posed a threat to
national and international security, and he was deported to Germany.
Zundel has been standing trial in Germany since November of last year
in what were, at times, raucous proceedings. In the current trial,
defence lawyer Ludwig Bock quoted from Adolf Hitler’s "Mein Kampf" and
from Nazi race laws in his closing statements last week as argued for
Zundel’s acquittal, reports canada.com.