Bishop Richard Williamson, who plunged the Vatican into crisis earlier this year by denying the Holocaust in a television interview, may face a €12,000 fine.But he told SPIEGEL that he never intended his interview to be broadcast in Germany.
Denying the Holocaust can be expensive. That, at least, could be the lesson facing Bishop Richard Williamson, the ultra-conservative Catholic cleric who plunged the Vatican into crisis in January by telling Swedish television that he believed "there were no gas chambers."
Last week, public prosecutors in the southern German city of Regensburg, where Williamson was when he filmed the interview, have formally requested that the bishop be fined €12,000 ($17,860) for incitement. Denying the Holocaust is against the law in Germany.
The presiding court is expected to make a decision this week.
Williamson, for his part, doubts that such a penalty is in conformity with German law. He told SPIEGEL that he can only be fined if he gave his approval for the interview to be shown in Germany.
Williamson, though, claims he "tried to prevent the broadcast of my interview with Swedish television in Germany by way of the Internet." Indeed, in early January, he filed a motion to prevent his interview from landing in the Internet, but it was rejected in court.
'Review the Historical Evidence'
In addition to denying the existence of gas chambers, Williamson also said that he believed only 200,000 to 300,000 Jews lost their lives in German concentration camps rather than the 6 million commonly accepted by historians.
Once the scandal broke, Williamson unconvincingly told SPIEGEL he was willing to "review the historical evidence once again."
The timing of the Williamson interview proved particularly problematic for Pope Benedict XVI. Just days after his comments hit global headlines, the Vatican announced that it was lifting the excommunication of four bishops from the ultra-conservative Society of St. Pius (SSPX), Williamson among them.
The ensuing scandal, which included condemnation of the pope from Jewish groups and politicians (including German Chancellor Angela Merkel) the world over, continued for weeks.
According to the Süddeutsche Zeitung on Monday, the Swedish television station denies Williamson's claims that it had agreed only to broadcast the interview in Sweden.
The size of the fine requested by the Regensburg prosecutors would be enough to establish a criminal record for Williamson in Germany.
The bishop told SPIEGEL he thought the penalty was "surprisingly high."
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