New charges against Bishop Williamson


The case of Holocaust denier Bishop Richard Williamson is expected to come to a new trial. The Regensburg court has re-adopted the charges against the SSPX member. His defense council has announced that they will oppose the charges. The Regensburg court has again charged the ultraconservative bishop and Holocaust denier Richard Williamson with incitement to racial hatred. The SSPX bishop downplayed the murder of Jews during the Nazi dictatorship, according to a court spokesman. The penalty provides for a fine of 100 equivalent daily units (financial penalties are on a tariff of days in Germany). The spokesman would not disclose the amount of the penalty sought. 

Williamson's lawyer has announced that a statement of opposition against the fine will be lodged with the court. The case against the 72-year-old bishop will therefore have to be reopened. There had been no new results from the investigation, so that the defense will seek an acquital, it was said in a statement. Williamson, Bishop of the ultra-conservative SSPX had, in October 2008, been intervieed in the seminary of the Society in Regensburg by a Swedish television crew. In it, he denied the existence of gas chambers and the killing of millions of Jews by the Nazis. The interview broadcast in Sweden was published on the Internet. 

 The District Court in Regensburg had demanded that Williamson as a penalty make a payment of a 10,000 euro fine. The bishop refused which led to the first process. In it , the District Court upheld the fine in 2010, which in 2011 was reduced to 6500 euros by the District Court of the Second Instance . However Williamson lodged an appeal. In February, the Nuremberg Higher Regional Court quashed the judgment because of procedural errors . The judges criticized the original judgment on the grounds that the distribution channels of the interview had not been shown. The Williamson case plunged the Catholic Church into a serious crisis. It was precisely at the time that the interview was made ​​public that the Vatican announced the lifting of the excommunication of Williamson and three other bishops of the SSPX. Pope Benedict XVI. said at the time that he had known nothing of the interview. Source

Comments

Sixupman said…
Far from being a +Williamson supporter, never mind sycophant, this further pursuit of him, I would guess, is not unrelated to the CDF [++Muller] stand-off with +Fellay.

After all +Williamson is all the German Bishops' Conference have to hang their hat on.
Dolorosa said…
I agree with the Eponymous Flower Blog that you are too politically correct. These people consider themselves to be above the law and anyone who dares to expose the truth of their evil is a target.
Bishop Williamson is a hero for truth, justice, and the Roman Catholic Church. He is another Fr. Fahey, Fr. Coughlin, etc.
Unknown said…
Anyone who seriously believes that 6 million jews were systematically in concerntarion camps ignores research that intimates they were fewer than that. For example, the Auschwitz count has been revised downwards. The real Holocaust is the number of abortions going on around the world.
Many of us refuse to keep making "mea culpas" over this vastly overstated and overexaggerated fact of history. let us have true openness to debate this and not the usual official cover-up exploiting judicial process and mediatised persecution. As for Bishop Williamson et al. can anyone deny that The SSPX is being run like a dictatorship these days with three years wasted trying to harmonise liberal modernism with orthodox Roman Catholicism - can we really integrate "rupture" with "continuity"? This is what the issue is all about, not Williamson's views on the SSW.
Asshole said…
Chris, you're too politically correct! And my German shepherd is too feline!

When did Tancred over at Eponymous Flower call you politically correct?