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| Holocaust denier goes on trial
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Ernst Zundel
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The trial of German revisionist Ernst Zundel, one of the leading publishers of anti-Semitic and neo-nazi material, opened on Tuesday at the Mannheim court, in western Germany.
The 66-year-old Zundel, who is appearing for the first time before a court in his country of origin, risks up to 5 years in prison.
He is accused of decades of anti-Semitic activity, including repeated denials of the Holocaust – a crime in Germany – in documents and on his internet “Zundelsite.”
In his site, he claims that “the Holocaust is a creation of Israel aimed at extracting money from Germany.”
He also edited a leaflet entitled “Were there really six million deaths?”, referring to Holocaust victims.
Tumultuous demonstrations
The trial, which is expected to last five days, could be tumultuous.
 the Holocaust is a creation of Israel aimed at extracting money from Germany
Zundelsite | Last September, his supporters demonstrated in Prague in front of the German embassy and were confronted by counter-protestors.
The counter-demonstrators waved banners, Israeli flags and photographs of Nazi concentration camps and chanted slogans, while a far-right activist gave a speech describing the 66-year-old Zundel as a "prisoner of conscience".
"Nothing but lies!" and "Learn to read!" the counter-protestors shouted.
"It seems bizarre to me that today another historian can be imprisoned for reaching an opinion different from the official one," one of the organisers of the pro-Zundel demonstration told journalists.
Holocaust revisionism was a way of "defaming the Jewish nation" anew, one of the counter-demonstrators, Leo Pavlat, director of the Prague Jewish Museum, said.
Threat to security
Zundel, who is close to Robert Faurisson, a French revisionist historian, emigrated to Canada in 1958 and lived in Toronto and Montreal until 2001.
Canadian officials rejected his attempts to obtain citizenship in 1966 and 1994.
I cross-examined Zundel for five days. In my view, he does not believe the Holocaust did not happen
Donald MacIntosh, Canadian prosecutor | In 2000 he was condemned by a Canadian court to nine months in prison for publishing anti-Semitic material, but the judgment was cancelled by Canada’s high court in the name of freedom of expression.
German prosecutors obtained an arrest warrant for Zundel in 2003. Because Zundel’s Holocaust-denying website was available in Germany, he is considered to have been spreading his message to Germans.
He had been detained in Toronto since 2003 under anti-terrorism laws and expulsed after a Canadian judge ruled his activities a threat to national and international security.
“I cross-examined Zundel for five days. In my view, he does not believe the Holocaust did not happen. He’s far more intelligent than that. He’s doing it because he hates Jewish people and made a great deal of money,” Donald MacIntosh, a leading Canadian prosecutor, told a McGill University audience recently.
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