August 08, 2007

German neo-Nazi activist sentenced to jail for denying Holocaust

The head of a neo-Nazi party based in the south German state of Hesse was sentenced to four months in jail by a court in the town of Friedberg for denying the Holocaust.

Marcel Woell who leads the National Democratic Party (NPD) had referred to "the sites of so-called national socialist terror".

The 24-year-old NPD chairman who was previously convicted on several counts of inflicting bodily harm, had also branded school trips to the Holocaust memorial sites as "brainwashing pupils".

Woell said he had never the intention of denying the existence of the Holocaust which is considered a crime in Germany and may carry a maximum sentence of five years.

The NPD has around 400 members in Hesse and is being monitored by Germany's domestic intelligence service as the neo-Nazi party is classified as a "threat to the constitutional order" because of its political ideology.

Several neo-Nazi activists have already been imprisoned in Germany in recent times for denying the Holocaust.

IRNA

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