The Independent London, UK, Thursday, March 3, 2005 Holocaust denier faces jail in Germany By Tony Paterson in Berlin GERMAN state prosecutors have charged one of the world's most notorious Holocaust deniers with inciting racial hatred, ending a 10-year battle by the country's legal authorities to bring him to justice. Ernst Zündel, who once described Adolf Hitler as a "decent and peaceful man", was extradited from Canada and bundled on to a flight to Frankfurt on Tuesday [March 1, 2005] after a decade on the run from the German authorities. Yesterday, state prosecutors in Mainz charged the 65-year-old German citizen with inciting racial hatred and denying the Holocaust, a crime in Germany punishable by a maximum five-year prison term. David Irving comments: THIS article is a schoolroom example of journalistic spite without factual analysis.    After serving two years in solitary confinement in a Canadian jail, and being found to be a "security risk" under the new post 9/11"anti-terror" laws, Zündel is air-freighted out of the country he has lived in without having once been convicted of any charge.    Instead of giving him a choice of destination, Canada turns him over to Germany, which had not at that time issued any charge against him to back its extradition demand. No UK magistrate would have allowed such a procedure.    In Canada the judiciary is heavily polluted with the traditional enemies of Free Speech. Zündel's "crime" is to have said things which these folks did not want people to hear.     It was Zündel after all who sent Fred Leuchter to Auschwitz with his bucket and spade: and that Parsifal-like character returned with 48 ("illegal") samples hacked out of the brickwork from the "gas chambers"; and a highly reputable New England forensic laboratory found that there were no significant traces of cyanide residue in the homicidal chambers where half a million men had allegedly been gassed.    Zündel had to be made to pay for this effrontery, nay act of blasphemy. WHAT are his crimes? What are the facts: It is said here that he called Hitler a peaceful man. A lot of people have believed that and history may well agree. But Zündel also wrote a book called The Hitler We Loved And Why. Real Spike Milligan stuff that, and hardly calling for a five-year jail sentence.    The Canadian judge Pierre Blais, a real modern-day Roland Freisler, ruled however that his activities were a threat to the "international community of nations". Many might say that President George W Bush's activities are just such a threat. MY friend Ernst Zündel has borne the extraordinary stings inflicted on him by these puny enemies with great and marvellous fortitude. Only yesterday I found a two-page pencilled letter from him -- a blunt pencil was all he that he was allowed in his Canadian prison cell -- waiting amongst the months-old mail that has finally caught up with me on my journey across the USA..    "A friend of the British historian David Irving."    Yes, I have many friends who hold to views which do not conform, and I am proud to call this brave man one of them. Mr Zündel made no comment as the charges were read out in closed court. He will remain in custody until his trial this year, a court spokesman said. The white supremacist, a friend of the British historian and Holocaust denier David Irving who is banned from entering Germany, emigrated to Canada in 1958. In the 1970s, he set up Samisdat Publishing, one of the world's main distributors of Nazi propaganda. In 1995, his firm developed a website dedicated to Holocaust denial. Mr Zündel's publications include a book entitled The Hitler We Loved And Why and countless leaflets and internet files with titles such as The Auschwitz Lie and Did Six Million Really Die? When German authorities tried to extradite him, he claimed immunity because of his Canadian residency. Then in 2003, prosecutors obtained a warrant for his arrest after judges ruled that because his website could be read in Germany, he could be brought to trial there. In Canada, his activities became the subject of a legal wrangle which ended only last week. In 1988, a Canadian judge convicted Mr Zündel of "knowingly publishing false news" but the supreme court overturned the ruling four years later, decreeing that it violated freedom of expression. Canada declared in 2000 that Mr Zündel's overtly racist website was in breach of the country's constitution, so he fled to the United States. He was sent back to Canada in 2003 for being in breach of US immigration law. Last week a Canadian court ruled his activities a threat to the "international community of nations" and agreed to his extradition.     Our dossier on the Ernst Zündel case    Links about deportation of Zündel:   BBC Online: Canada expels Holocaust denier Chicago Sun-Times: Canada deports immigrant who denies Holocaust CBS News: Zündel turned over to German authorities     Kvelling loudly, the traditional enemies tonight: Canada judge rules Ernst Zündel security risk; German jail now awaits DES-2-03 Decision rendered on February 24, 2005, IN THE MATTER OF A CERTIFICATE signed pursuant to subsection 77(1) of the IRPA and Ernst Zündel Web site for followers of Zündel: www.Zündelsite.org Text of ruling: www.fct-cf.gc.ca/bulletins Federal Court in Canada Rules Against Zündel CSIS intercepted Zündel's mail, ex-agent says | Closing arguments begin in Zündel deportation case: Zündel defence based on age draws scorn | Defence closing: Zündel's followers bookish seniors, not violent skinheads, lawyer says | Closing arguments begin in Zündel deportation case: Judge accused of 'misguided approach' in Zündel case Ernst Zündel is entitled to a hearing to challenge his deportation to Canada, a federal appeals court says Who is Ernst Zündel and Why Is He in Jail? Some Good News in the Zündel Case

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