Germany tries 'Holocaust denier'

[SunWuKong]

i wonder what Reporters Without Borders has to say about this?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6147400.stm

Germany tries 'Holocaust denier'

A German man deported from the US has gone on trial in the Germany city of Mannheim for alleged Holocaust denial.

Germar Rudolf published a study saying the Nazis did not use gas to kill Jews at the Auschwitz concentration camp.

The prosecution says he "represented the Holocaust as invention" and used the internet to spread his documents.

If found guilty, Mr Rudolf will face up to five years in prison. He has already been given an jail sentence in a similar case but fled to the US.

A chemistry graduate, 42-year-old Mr Rudolf also faces charges of defaming the memory of the dead.

He was sentenced to 14 months in prison in a similar case in 1995 but fled the country.

His 2000 application for political asylum in the US was rejected and he was deported back to Germany to serve the earlier sentence.

In a similar case in February 2005, British revisionist historian David Irving was found guilty of denying the Holocaust by an Austrian court and sentenced to three years in prison.

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countries with laws against Holocaust denial:
Austria
Belgium
Czech Republic
France
Germany
Israel
Lithuania
Poland
Slovakia
Switzerland

[Martino]

This wouldn't be the first prosecution, but it's the first time I've heard of a man being extradited to stand trial, albeit a German national who was on the run - though god knows on what grounds he applied for political asylum in the US. Maybe he confused it with South America.

[LaiSteve66]

I wonder if they have laws against denying the Armenian genocide or Japanese war crimes in WW2.

[Martino]

I wonder if they have laws against denying the Armenian genocide or Japanese war crimes in WW2.

I'm wondering if a German court will try to extradite Rumsfeld. Probably not.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6146058.stm

A lawyers' group has asked Germany to sue former US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld over alleged prisoner abuse in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay.

The complaint was filed by the US-based Center for Constitutional Rights on behalf of a Saudi man held in Cuba and 11 Iraqis held in Baghdad.

German law allows the pursuit of cases originating anywhere in the world.

State prosecutors have yet to decide whether to pursue the case. An earlier request for a case in 2004 was dropped.

Michael Ratner, the centre's president, said he felt the case had a better chance of success now because Mr Rumsfeld was no longer in office and could not exert the same degree of "political pressure".

He added that the centre had more evidence than it did in 2004, citing the case of a detained Saudi national, Mohamad al-Qahtani.

"Al-Qahtani was a man who the US alleged is al-Qaeda, who is in Guantanamo. The entire torture log of al-Qahtani over a period of two months was exposed," Mr Ratner told the BBC.

Resignation

The Center for Constitutional Rights argues that Mr Rumsfeld was instrumental in abuses committed at Guantanamo Bay and at Abu Ghraib jail in Baghdad.

The group of international lawyers alleges that Mr Rumsfeld personally approved the use of torture to extract information from the prisoners.

Wolfgang Kaleck, the lawyer leading the attempt to bring the case, said former US Army Brig-Gen Janis Karpinski would be the "star witness".

Ms Karpinski was commander of US prisons in Iraq when several prisoners were abused by US soldiers at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib facility.

Mr Rumsfeld resigned on Wednesday following Republican losses to the Democrats in the US mid-term elections.

The US denies any torture has taken place at Guantanamo Bay and has defended its interrogation techniques.

Abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib was brought to world attention after soldiers' photographs of the incidents were released and published.

Ten US soldiers have been found guilty of abuses at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison. The US says they were acting without official sanction.

[SunWuKong]

I wonder if they have laws against denying the Armenian genocide or Japanese war crimes in WW2.

i believe France has laws against Armenian genocide denial. i'm not sure if anybody has laws against Japanese war crimes denial