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Prosecutors pursue charges against Holocaust denying Catholic bishop

Prosecutors in the Bavarian city of Regensburg have submitted a request to press charges against the controversial Catholic bishop Richard Williamson for inciting hatred by denying the Holocaust.

Published: 15 October 2009 16:55 CEST

Prosecutors pursue charges against Holocaust denying Catholic bishop

Photo: DPA

A judge will now decide if expedited legal proceedings against the member of the ultraconservative Society of St. Pius X go forward. The process can only be used when there is no hearing required and the defendant does not face time in jail.

“It’s heading in the direction of a fine,” said Johann Plöd, the president of the Regensburg district court.

One year ago, Williamson unleashed a storm of outrage by claiming the Nazis didn’t murder Jews in gas chambers and that only 200,000 to 300,000 Jewish people had been killed in concentration camps. Because he made his comments to Swedish television while at a Pius brotherhood seminary in Zaitzkofen, Bavaria, the bishop can face criminal charges in Germany.

Prosecutors started their investigation into the incident January, however, it has been hampered by the refusal of Swedish officials to compel the TV journalist to testify as a witness.

The controversy surrounding Williamson engulfed the entire Catholic Church at the beginning of the year after Pope Benedict XVI lifted his excommunication along with that of three other bishops from the Society of St. Pius X. The conservative religious sect rejects the Vatican’s teaching on religious freedom and pluralism, including the idea that Jews are the “older brothers” of Christians.

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Germany arrests Syrian man accused of plotting to kill soldiers

The suspect, an “alleged follower of a radical Islamic ideology”, was arrested on Thursday on charges of planning “a serious act of violence endangering the state”.

The man had acquired two heavy knives “around 40 centimetres (more than one foot) in length” in recent days, prosecutors in Munich said.

He planned to “attack Bundeswehr soldiers” in the city of Hof in northern Bavaria during their lunch break, aiming “to kill as many of them as possible”, prosecutors said.

“The accused wanted to attract attention and create a feeling of insecurity among the population,” they said.

German security services have been on high alert over the threat of Islamist attacks, in particular since the Gaza war erupted on October 7th with the Hamas attacks on Israel.

Police shot dead a man in Munich this month after he opened fire on officers in what was being treated as a suspected “terrorist attack” on the Israeli consulate in Munich.

The shootout fell on the anniversary of the kidnap and killing of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games by Palestinian militants.

The 18-year-old suspect had previously been investigated by authorities in his home country Austria on suspicion of links to terrorism but the case had been dropped.

The incident capped a string of attacks in Germany, which have stirred a sense of insecurity in Germany and fed a bitter debate of immigration.

Three people were killed last month in a suspected Islamist stabbing at a festival in the western city of Solingen.

READ ALSO: ‘Ban asylum seekers’ – How Germany is reacting to Solingen attack

The suspect in the attack, which was claimed by the Islamic State group, was a Syrian man who had been slated for deportation from Germany.

A federal interior ministry spokesman said if an Islamist motive was confirmed in the latest foiled attack, it would be “further evidence of the high threat posed by Islamist terrorism in Germany, which was recently demonstrated by the serious crimes in Mannheim and the attack in Solingen, but also by acts that were fortunately prevented by the timely intervention of the security authorities”.

The Solingen stabbing followed a knife attack in the city of Mannheim in May, which left a policeman dead, and which had also been linked to Islamism by officials.

Germany has responded to the attacks by taking steps to tighten immigration controls and knife laws.

READ ALSO: Debt, migration and the far-right – the big challenges facing Germany this autumn

The government has announced new checks along all of its borders and promised to speed up deportations of migrants who have no right to stay in Germany.

The number of people considered Islamist extremists in Germany fell slightly from 27,480 in 2022 to 27,200 last year, according to a report from the federal domestic intelligence agency.

But Interior Minister Nancy Faeser warned in August that “the threat posed by Islamist terrorism remains high”.

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