Nazi sympathizer Carlos Schellnast has been sentenced to eight months in jail for “activities of racial discrimination” in Argentina.
The 46-year-old Schellnast was a suspect in the investigation of the desecration of 112 tombs in the Jewish cemetery of Berazategui, a suburb south of Buenos Aires, in June 1991.
Investigators were never able to charge him and others with the actual incident, although a police search of Schellnast’s house and those of other suspects revealed weapons and explosives among anti-Semitic literature and propaganda glorifying Adolf Hitler and Nazism.
In Schellnast’s sentencing, Judge Orfeo Maggio applied, for the first time, a 1988 anti-discrimination law that condemns all action in which racial hatred is expressed in any way toward any community.
The judge’s decision was significant because Schellnast was convicted not on the basis of his participation in the attack on the cemetery — which could not be proven — but because of his statements inciting anti-Semitism and racism.
Schellnast was held responsible for various racist activities, including exhibition of printed material with swastikas and making comments such as “we have to kill all Jews.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
