A 20-year-old student held responsible for dissemination of anti-Semitic leaflets, last spring, at the time the Adolf Eichmann trial got under way in Jerusalem, will be prosecuted under a law calling for five years’ imprisonment upon conviction, it was announced here today by Prosecutor Sebastio Barreto.
The law was enacted two years ago, after it had been introduced in Parliament by the then Sen. Alfonso Arinos, now Brazilian Minister of Justice. It forbids the dissemination of race-hate materials, on penalty of five years’ imprisonment. No one has as yet been prosecuted under that act.
Last spring, police arrested two Brazilian students who had tossed anti-Semitic leaf lets into the garden adjoining the Jewish Center at Sao Paulo. The students said their action was “just a prank, “and told police the leaflets had been given to them by another student, Walter Piepke, 20. The two students were released with reprimands, but Piepke was arrested.
In announcing that Piepke will be prosecuted under the two-year-old anti-racist law, Prosecutor Barreto said: “Piepke is of German extraction. Had he been of Brazilian extraction, I would have believed him, as I believed the two other students, that he was engaged in ‘a prank.’ But since he is of German extraction, and furthermore used Brazilian students to spread the leaflets, I shall prosecute him.”
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