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A Holocaust denier is suing a former French justice minister for defamation. Robert Faurisson appeared in court Monday to file against Robert Badinter for saying in a 2006 television interview that he had Faurisson “convicted for being a forger of history.” Faurisson, 77, who was convicted in 1981 of imprudence, tampering with evidence and intellectual bias for speaking of the “alleged gas chambers and alleged genocide of the Jews,” argued that he was not convicted of falsifying history. He is seeking some $20,000 in damages and a statement of Badinter’s guilt on the same television program.

Badinter in court spoke of the deportation of his uncle, grandmother and father when he was 15 years old. All three were murdered in Nazi concentration camps.

“Denial is one of the worst acts of those falsifying history. All of a sudden it means that there are no dead, no assassinated, that Jews were dead for nothing, just by accident,” he said. “Until my last living day, until my last breath, I will continue to fight against you and against the likes of you. You will always remain a forger of history.”

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