After serving a five-year sentence for denying the Holocaust, far-right activist Ernst Zundel will soon be released from prison, a German prosecutor said Wednesday.
Zundel, who was deported from Canada in 2005, was convicted in February 2007 of 14 counts of incitement for years of anti-Semitic activities, including contributing to a website dedicated to denying the Holocaust, which is a crime in Germany.
Zundel and his supporters had argued he was exercising his right to free speech. His appeal of the conviction was rejected by a German federal court.
Mannheim prosecutor Andreas Grossman said the 70-year-old Zundel will be released from prison March 1, after receiving credit for time served before his 2007 trial.
Since the 1970s, Zundel has been known as a prominent white supremacist and Holocaust denier. He gained notoriety in the 1980s with publications that included "The Hitler We Loved and Why" and "Did Six Million Really Die?"
Zundel is a German citizen and will be able to go wherever he chooses in Germany following his release, Grossman said.
But Grossman said it was his understanding that Zundel is banned from returning to the United States and Canada.
In an email, Zundel's wife Ingrid told The Associated Press that he was not technically barred from North America but that they "expect huge diplomatic barriers to keep him inside Germany where freedom of speech simply doesn't exist."
Born in Germany in 1939, Zundel came to Canada in 1958 and lived in Toronto and Montreal until 2001.
After failed attempts to obtain Canadian citizenship in 1966 and 1994, Zundel moved to Pigeon Forge, Tennessee and married fellow extremist Ingrid Rimland. In 2003, Zundel was deported from the U.S. to Canada for alleged immigration violations.
Upon his arrival in Toronto, Zundel was arrested and detained until a federal court judge deported him back to Germany in March 2005. The judge ruled that Zundel was a threat to national and international security.
Two previous attempts at prosecuting Zundel in Canada failed when the Supreme Court of Canada ultimately struck down laws against spreading false news, calling it a violation of free speech.
Ingrid Zundel has remained in the U.S. since her husband's arrest. She has been running Zundel's website since his arrest, she said, so can not risk being there when he is released.
"I would be risking immediate arrest if I stepped on German soil," she said.
With files from The Associated Press
