BRITISH BISHOP Richard Williamson failed to appear in court in Regensburg yesterday for the opening of his appeal against charges of incitement for questioning the Holocaust.
Bishop Williamson, a member of the breakaway Society of St Pius X (SSPX), was convicted and fined €10,000 last year for claiming the number of Jews killed by the Nazis was far lower than generally believed.
In a 2008 interview with Swedish broadcaster SVT that was recorded in Germany, where Holocaust denial is a crime, he denied that Jews died at the hands of the Nazis in gas chambers.
Opening the appeal, Bishop Williamson’s attorney, Benjamin Weller, said the 71-year-old bishop had been asked “leading questions” by the Swedish television journalist, who had broken a promise that the interview would not be made available in Germany.
“The accused was deceived about the purpose of the interview,” said Mr Weller, saying his client was caught off guard with questions about the Holocaust.
The interview caused headlines worldwide after it appeared on the internet, just as the Vatican began the process of lifting the excommunication of Bishop Williamson and three other SSPX bishops, a traditionalist Catholic group founded in 1970 by French archbishop Marcel Lefebvre.
The Vatican severed ties with the organisation in 1988.
In the interview excerpt available on the internet the bishop says: “I believe that the historical evidence is hugely against six million Jews having being deliberately gassed in gas chambers as a deliberate policy of Adolf Hitler.”
Asked by the Swedish journalist: “But you say not one Jew was killed . . .”
“. . . in gas chambers”, replies Williamson.
“So there were no gas chambers?” asks the journalist.
“I believe there were no gas chambers, yes. As far as I have studied the evidence – I’m not going by emotion . . . I think for instance people who are against what is very widely believed today about, quote, the Holocaust – I think those people conclude – the revisionists as they’re called – I think the most serious conclude that between 200,000 and 300,000 Jews perished in Nazi concentration camps but not one of them by gassing in a gas chamber.”