German court convicts bishop for denying Holocaust

Richard Williamson convicted of incitement, fined for saying Jews were not killed in gas chambers

A German court convicted ultraconservative British Bishop Richard Williamson on Friday for denying the Holocaust in a television interview.

A court in the Bavarian city of Regensburg found Williamson guilty of incitement for saying in a 2008 interview with Swedish television that he did not believe Jews were killed in gas chambers during World War II.


The court ordered Williamson to pay a fine of $13,544. The Roman Catholic bishop was barred by his order from attending Friday's proceedings or making statements to the media.


His lawyer, Matthias Lossmann, told The Associated Press after the court ruling that Williamson has yet to decide if would appeal it.


Denying the Holocaust is a criminal offense in Germany.


The court last year ordered a fine of 12,000 euro for Williamson, without a trial. But the Bishop appealed that ruling, forcing his case to be tried publicly.


Lossmann said that Williamson had explicitly asked the Swedish television crew conducting the interview not to broadcast it in Germany.


In issuing her ruling, Judge Karin Frahm said the bishop could not have expected that the clip would show up on YouTube and be seen directly in Germany, which led her to reduce the fine, court spokesman Bernhard Schneider told the AP.


The journalists who conducted the interview also ignored a court order to attend the trial, Lossmann said, leaving the judge to rely on written statements as testimony.


"That does not do a case like this justice," Lossmann said.


The interview was conducted near Regensburg and was granted shortly before Williamson's excommunication was lifted by Pope Benedict XVI, along with that of three other bishops from the anti-modernization movement of the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre.

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