A convicted Holocaust denier who spent two years on the run is to be extradited again to France, a Scottish court docket has dominated.
Vincent Reynouard, 54, was arrested in November final 12 months after being tracked down in Fife.
Throughout a listening to at Edinburgh Sheriff Court docket on Thursday, Reynouard was informed he can be returned to his homeland to face trial on prices together with “public trivialisation of a conflict crime” and “public incitement to hatred”.
The Frenchman’s legal professionals had argued that UK extradition legislation solely permits folks to be despatched again to their homeland if there may be an equal British crime to the one which overseas states plan to prosecute them for.
Defence advocate Fred Waterproof coat KC acknowledged there was no equal legislation in Scotland to Holocaust denial and that this could cease his consumer from being extradited.
Nevertheless, Sheriff Chris Dickson dominated towards the defence.
In a written judgment explaining his resolution, Sheriff Dickson wrote about how Reynouard revealed a video on-line.
Sheriff Dickson concluded that though Reynouard “didn’t name for the extermination of the Jewish folks”, his actions within the video would represent an offence below Scottish legislation and on account of that he might be extradited.
Reynouard was apprehended in Anstruther on 10 November 2022 on a Commerce and Cooperation Settlement warrant.
He’s needed in France because the authorities there consider he’s responsible of denying the Holocaust came about. The act of Holocaust denial is an offence in France.
Experiences say Reynouard was utilizing a false id whereas working as a personal tutor after evading authorities for 2 years earlier than being arrested.
The search was led by France’s Central Workplace for the Combat towards Crimes towards Humanity and Hate Crimes.
The investigation started after the memorial of Oradour-sur-Glane, the place Nazi troops killed and destroyed a whole village in June 1944, was vandalised by graffiti which learn “Reynouard is true”.
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Reynouard was first convicted of Holocaust denial in 1991.
He was detained after handing out leaflets denying the existence of fuel chambers amongst highschool pupils.
In 1997, he was sacked from his job as a maths instructor at a secondary college in Honfleur, Normandy. His dismissal got here after the invention of revisionist texts on his laptop arduous disk.
He was additionally discovered giving his college students statistical equations concerning the speed of mortality in Nazi focus camps.
In 2005, Reynouard was sentenced to a 12 months’s imprisonment and fined €10,000 (£8,600) by a court docket for writing a 16-page brochure entitled “Holocaust? This is what’s stored hidden from you”.
This was despatched to French tourism workplaces, museums and city halls.
In 2015, he was sentenced to 2 years in jail by a court docket in Normandy for denying the Holocaust in a sequence of Fb posts.
His most up-to-date conviction got here in November 2020 for posting a Holocaust denial video on YouTube.