Belgian revisionist to be extradited to Germany
A Dutch court on Tuesday authorised the extradition to Germany of a Belgian man who faces charges of racism and xenophobia and publicly expressing doubts about the Holocaust.
Siegfried Verbeke was arrested at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport on August 5 at the request of German authorities, who had issued one month earlier an international arrest warrant after Verbeke expressed doubts on an Internet site about the genocide of six million Jews during WWII.
Verbeke faces two charges; one of racism and xenophobia and a second of spreading his revisionist opinions on the Internet, which constitutes a "computer crime" in Germany.
An Amsterdam court on Tuesday authorised Verbeke’s extradition on the first charge after the German authorities failed to provide the court with a copy of the law regarding the computer crime.
Anti-Semitic history
A co-founder of the extreme-right Vlaams Blok party (now called Vlaams Belang), in the Flemish-speaking part of Belgium, Verbeke has run for more than 25 years the Antwerp-based Free Historical Research organisation, active in spreading books and leaflets negating the Holocaust.
Prior to this, he led a paramilitary neo-nazi organization, called “Vlaamse Militanten Orde” (for “Flemish Militant Order”).
Convicted in Belgium in 2003, together with his brother Herbert, by an Antwerp court for Holocaust denial and racism, an appeal court toughened a previous sentence and condemned Verbeke to one year imprisonment. His civil and political rights were withdrawn for a 1O-year period.
The Belgian authorities refused the extradition of Verbeke to Germany.
The court stressed the Verbeke’s “contempt towards the enormous suffering provoked by the Nazi crimes which he tries to minimize in a pseudo-scientific way.”
The man also faced similar charges in the Netherlands for having questioned the veracity of the Anna Frank memories book. However, proceedings were suspended by the Dutch Justice Minister Piet Hein Donner on the condition that Verbeke faced the charges in Germany.
Verbeke will be transferred to a German jail within ten days.


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