Holocaust Denier Fredrick Toben Vows to Defy Judge
Pia Akerman
REVISIONIST historian Fredrick Toben has declared he will go to jail rather than pay a fine if the Federal Court this week finds him guilty of publishing material denying the Holocaust occurred.
Judge Bruce Lander is expected to rule on Thursday whether Dr Toben breached previous court orders not to publish offensive material about Jews and the Holocaust on his Adelaide Institute website.
But Dr Toben, 64, said yesterday he would refuse to pay any fine if Justice Lander found in favour of plaintiff Jeremy Jones, former president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, who brought the civil case against Dr Toben.
"If I am found guilty and a fine is handed down, I will on principle refuse to pay the fine, so that means I will have to go in (to jail)," he said in Melbourne, before a meeting with his lawyer.
Dr Toben, a former teacher, was held in Britain for nearly two months last year while German prosecutors tried unsuccessfully to extradite him on an EU warrant.
In January, he announced plans to go to Germany to fight charges of publishing "anti-Semitic and/or revisionist" material, but has now told his supporters his challenge is "on hold" because of the pending Federal Court decision.
Dr Toben also spent seven months in Mannheim prison in Germany, in 1999, for inciting racism.
He has pleaded not guilty to 28 charges alleging he breached orders by the Federal Court in 2002 not to publish offensive material on his website.
The original material breached the Racial Discrimination Act, implying that the Holocaust did not happen and doubting the existence of gas chambers at the Auschwitz concentration camp.
Dr Toben was also banned from publishing material implying Jews who were offended or challenged by Holocaust denial were of limited intelligence, and that some Jewish people had exaggerated the number of Jews killed in World War II and the circumstances for financial gain.
He faces a possible finding of criminal contempt if found guilty.
Justice Lander has heard that Dr Toben publicly defied the court's authority by casting aspersions on judicial officers and the legal process, promoting a view that the court was "merely a proxy" for Jews.
www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25330935-17044,00.html