A convicted Holocaust denier who spent two years on the run is to be extradited again to France, a Scottish courtroom has dominated.
Vincent Reynouard, 54, was arrested in November final 12 months after being tracked down in Fife.
During a listening to at Edinburgh Sheriff Court on Thursday, Reynouard was informed he might be returned to his homeland to face trial on prices together with “public trivialisation of a war crime” and “public incitement to hatred”.
The Frenchman’s legal professionals had argued that UK extradition regulation solely permits folks to be despatched again to their homeland if there’s an equal British crime to the one which international states plan to prosecute them for.
Defence advocate Fred Mackintosh KC said there was no equal regulation in Scotland to Holocaust denial and that this could cease his shopper from being extradited.
However, Sheriff Chris Dickson dominated towards the defence.
In a written judgment explaining his determination, Sheriff Dickson wrote about how Reynouard revealed a video on-line.
Sheriff Dickson concluded that though Reynouard “did not call for the extermination of the Jewish people”, his actions within the video would represent an offence below Scottish regulation and as a consequence of that he may very well be extradited.
Reynouard was apprehended in Anstruther on 10 November 2022 on a Trade and Cooperation Agreement warrant.
He is needed in France because the authorities there consider he’s responsible of denying the Holocaust occurred. The act of Holocaust denial is an offence in France.
Reports say Reynouard was utilizing a false identification whereas working as a personal tutor after evading authorities for 2 years earlier than being arrested.
The search was led by France’s Central Office for the Fight 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 right”.
Read extra from Sky News:
Israel PM says Hamas is ‘enemy of civilisation’ and ‘might be crushed’
Ex-Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone avoids jail after pleading responsible to fraud
Reynouard was first convicted of Holocaust denial in 1991.
He was detained after handing out leaflets denying the existence of gasoline chambers amongst highschool pupils.
In 1997, he was sacked from his job as a maths trainer at a secondary college in Honfleur, Normandy. His dismissal got here after the invention of revisionist texts on his laptop laborious disk.
He was additionally discovered giving his college students statistical equations relating to 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 courtroom for writing a 16-page brochure entitled “Holocaust? Here’s what’s kept hidden from you”.
This was despatched to French tourism places of work, museums and city halls.
In 2015, he was sentenced to 2 years in jail by a courtroom in Normandy for denying the Holocaust in a collection of Facebook posts.
His most up-to-date conviction got here in November 2020 for posting a Holocaust denial video on YouTube.
Source: information.sky.com”