An American neo-Nazi, identified by West German authorities as Gary Rex Lauck of Lincoln, Neb., has apparently left the country to avoid standing trial for spreading anti-Semitic material in the Federal Republic. A court in the town of Zweibruecken issued a warrant for his arrest yesterday after he failed to show up at a hearing. The authorities believe that Lauck, 28, who is of German origin, has returned to the U.S.
According to the prosecution, Lauck has been providing neo-Nazi groups in Germany with large quantities of virulently anti-Semitic material by mail. One of the recipients was Klaus-Ludwig Uhl, leader of a violence-prone neo-Nazi organization who was killed in a clash with police near Munich last October. The authorities say it is unlikely that Lauck will ever be brought to trial because his offenses are political crimes, a category excluded from the present agreements with the U.S. for extradition or mutual prosecution.
State Prosecutor Wilhelm Sattler pointed out that it was extremely difficult to bring disseminators of anti-Semitic periodicals to trial because of the six month statute of limitations on such material. Lauck sends his periodicals to Germany by surface mail which takes several weeks to reach its destination.
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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.
