19 September 2007
A German federal court has rejected an appeal by the notorious Holocaust denier Ernst Zündel against his conviction to a five-year prison term. Zündel, who was deported from Canada in 2005 and convicted by a German court in February 2007 on 14 counts of incitement of hatred for his anti-Semitic activities, will now have to serve at least part of his jail sentence. In a statement, the federal court said that judges in a lower court were right not to deduct time Zündel had served in pre-deportation custody in Canada from his sentence. The extreme-right activitst and his supporters argued that Zündel was a peaceful campaigner being denied his right to free speech. Holocaust denial is a crime in Germany. The judge on the lower court case had described Zundel as an "extreme anti-Semite" and "committed National Socialist" who had sought to glamorize Hitler and make him seem harmless.
