Thursday, January 17, 2013

Holocaust-denying bishop fined

A German court has fined a renegade British bishop €1,800 (£1,500) for denying the Holocaust - Holocaust-denial is a crime in Germany - in a television interview.

An administrative court in Regensburg convicted Richard Williamson of incitement and levied the fine on Wednesday, the German news agency dpa reported. 

He was not present at Wednesday's court proceedings. 

The case was retried after an earlier conviction of Williamson was overturned on procedural grounds.

Williamson, 72, told a Swedish TV station in 2008, during an interview conducted near Regensburg, that he believed 200,000 to 300,000 Jews died in Nazi concentration camps, but none of them in gas chambers, during the Second World War.

Williamson, 72, was one of four bishops illicitly ordained by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre into the Society of St Pius X (SSPX), which rejects the reforms of the Second Vatican Council. 

Pope Benedict XVI lifted the excommunications of the four in 2009, the day the interview was broadcast. 

SSPX expelled Williamson last October.