Frederick Toben, wanted in Germany on charges of Holocaust denial, was arrested in London.
Scotland Yard arrested the Australian on Wednesday upon his arrival at Heathrow Airport, where he was en route from the United States to Dubai.
Toben, 64, was born in Germany but lives in Australia, where he founded the radical anti-Jewish Adelaide Institute. A Holocaust revisionist, he is accused of spreading material via the Internet that questions the truth of the Nazi genocide against European Jewry. Toben also participated in a 2006 conference of Holocaust deniers convened by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Tehran.
According to Deutsche Welle news, Toben told the Westminster Magistrates Court in London on Wednesday that if he were sent to Germany he would face a “witch trial.” He described himself as a “victim of legal persecution.” Media reports said he was denied bail and is being held in custody until the next extradition hearing, scheduled to be held Friday.
Toben was jailed for nine months in 1999 in Mannheim Prison after being convicted of “defaming the dead” by denying or questioning the Holocaust. In 2002, an Australian federal court ordered him to remove anti-Jewish material from his Web site.
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