CBC news has reported that Ernst Zundel who lived in Canada for decades before being deported to Germany to face prosecution has died, according to a statement from his wife Ingrid Zundel.
He died Sunday at home in Germany after he was found unconscious by his sister Sigrid.
Upon hearing the news, Zundel’s long time friend, Michael Hoffman, wrote
78-year-old German human rights activist and World War II revisionist Ernst Zündel died of heart failure at his ancestral home in Germany, yesterday. He was a most amazing person; a good friend to this writer; few men have loved the German people more than he. We will publish a retrospective of his life in a day or two.
Zundel was born in Germany, but later moved to Canada, where he operated a business and published literature about the Holocaust before being convicted of “spreading false news” in 1985.
That conviction was overturned seven years later when the Supreme Court of Canada argued the charge violated Zundel’s right to freedom of expression.
Zundel would go on to live in Toronto’s Cabbagetown neighbourhood for several years before a Federal Court ruled in 2005 that he was a national security threat. The move paved the way for his extradition.
In 2007, he was wrongly convicted in Germany of 14 counts of incitement of racial hatred and received a five-year sentence, the maximum allowable under the law. Having received credit for time served before trial, Zundel was freed…