(AFP) - The European Court of Human Rights ruled Thursday that Germany was within its rights to convict British bishop Richard Williamson of Holocaust denial.
Williamson sparked an outcry in 2009 by denying that the Nazis used gas chambers during the systematic murder of six million Jews during World War II. His lawyers tried to argue he should not had been convicted because the comment was made during a television interview broadcast in Sweden, where Holocaust denial is not illegal. But the interview was recorded in Germany, where it is a criminal offense. Williamson was convicted of incitement to hatred and ordered to pay a 12,000-Euro fine, which was reduced to 1,800 Euros ($2,100) in 2013 after a series of legal challenges.