Canada Jury Convicts Writer of ‘False News’ on Holocaust

Ernst Zundel, a German-born commercial artist, was convicted Thursday of “publishing false news” in a pamphlet declaring that accounts of the Nazi Holocaust are a hoax.

The verdict by a jury of 10 men and two women ended an eight-week trial in which Zundel’s assertions--that there were no gas chambers at the Auschwitz concentration camp and that Adolf Hitler had no intention of exterminating Jews--captured front-page attention across Canada.

The case produced mixed reactions from prominent Canadian Jews. Some felt Zundel gained more attention for his extreme views from being prosecuted than he ever could have through his publications.

Judge Hugh Locke set March 25 for sentencing and freed Zundel on bail of $720. Zundel, who was convicted on one of the two counts against him, faces a maximum one year in prison.

Zundel, 46, a West German citizen, has lived in Canada for more than 25 years. He was charged with publishing false news, defined as “a statement or tale that he knows is false” and that is “likely to cause mischief to the public interest in social and racial tolerance.”

He was prosecuted under an almost-forgotten Canadian statute that prosecutor Peter Griffiths said had been used only three times before in 90 years, with only one previous conviction.

Judge Locke rejected a defense argument that the charge violates the protection of freedom of speech in Canada’s three-year-old Charter of Rights, which is less sweeping than the First Amendment in the United States.

The trial dealt with a 32-page pamphlet entitled, “Did Six Million Really Die?” and a three-page letter, “The West, War and Islam,” which calls on Muslims to be alert to what Zundel described as a conspiracy among Communists, Zionists and “Freemasonry and all its cover organizations like the Kiwanis, Rotary, Lions, etc.”

Zundel was the final defense witness, describing himself as a pacifist who once believed that the Holocaust occurred but changed his mind in light of diligently researched evidence.

Other witnesses included several survivors of Nazi concentration camps, who were often moved to rage or tears when defense lawner Douglas Christie, in cross-examination, suggested that their accounts were lies or exaggerations.

The jury convicted Zundel in connection with his pamphlet challenging the widely accepted account that 6 million Jews were killed by the Nazis but found him innocent on the second charge, dealing with the letter to Muslims.

Defense lawyer Christie had told the jurors their verdict would decide whether Canadians have real freedom to hold their own opinions or live under censorship.

“I don’t question the right of Jews to hold their views, but why do they deny him the right to hold his?” Christie asked.