BERLIN (JTA) — Recidivist hate purveyor Horst Mahler, sentenced yesterday to six years in prison for hate crimes in a Munich court, is facing another trial.
Mahler, 73, was found guilty on Feb. 25 of incitement of hate for posting Holocaust denial material on the Internet and distributing anti-Semitic CDs calling for violence against Jews.
A founder of the far-left Red Army Faction who famously underwent a transformation to the extreme right, Mahler is expected to be transferred to a jail in the northeastern state of Brandenburg to await his next trial. A spokesperson from the Potsdam District Court told reporters that "our trial can only go forward if Horst Mahler is here."
Before being removed from the courtroom Wednesday, Mahler reportedly made a long closing statement repeating his Holocaust denial and saying he supported controversial Bishop Richard Williamson, who has publicly doubted that 6 million Jews were killed by the Nazis.
Mahler was a lawyer for the right-extremist National Democratic Party of Germany until he left the party in 2003.
In November 2007, he was sentenced to six months in a German prison for raising his arm in the illegal "Hitler salute" to greet his jailers in a previous sentence for incitement to hate.
