German Court Fines Bishop for Holocaust Denial

Richard Williamson fails to show up

By Kevin Spak, Newser Staff

Posted Apr 16, 2010 11:38 AM CDT

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German Court Fines Bishop for Holocaust Denial — British Bishop Richard Williamson, second from left foreground, is escorted out of London's Heathrow airport by police and security officers after arriving on a flight from Argentina,, Feb. 25, 2009. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth, FILE)

A German court has convicted a British bishop of inciting racial hatred and fined him $13,544 for denying the Holocaust in a 2009 TV interview. Richard Williamson wasn’t in the courtroom, the BBC reports. The court heard a tape of Williamson declaring that only “200,000 to 300,000 Jews perished in Nazi concentration camps,” and that no gas chambers were used. He can be heard telling the interviewer, “Be careful, this is against the law in Germany.”

The interview was taped in Germany by a Swedish broadcaster, and his lawyer had argued that Williamson couldn’t be held responsible if it had happened to air there. The court disagreed. "Bishop Williamson must have assumed that his remarks would draw attention," the sentencing judge said today. "Williamson knowingly accepted that attention."
(More Richard Williamson stories.)

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