British Holocaust denier verdict upheld

A German appeals court has upheld the guilty verdict of a British bishop who had been earlier convicted on charges of denying the Holocaust.

The Regensburg court on Monday confirmed a conviction issued against Richard Williamson last year for Holocaust denial, but decided to reduce his penalty from the original fine of EUR 10,000 to EUR 6,500 (USD 9,136), the Associated Press reported. 

The 71-year-old bishop had stated in a 2008 interview with a Swedish TV station that he did not believe Jews lost their lives in gas chambers in the Nazi concentration camps during the Second World War.

Williamson’s lawyers have not denied the statements made by him during the interview, but stressed that such views could be expressed freely in Sweden.

Holocaust denial is considered a crime in Germany.

In a similar case, Fredrick Toben, a graduate of Oxford’s Exeter College and a German-born Australian author, was tried in Germany in 1999 for his revisionist views of the Holocaust and sentenced to seven months in prison.