EXTRADITION TO GERMANY –
CHURCHILL COULD HAVE BEEN SENT TO NAZI GERMANY

Dateline: l7th January 2000

You report (l6th January) that a German (German Rudolf) has fled to Britain from Germany where he is wanted as a "Holocaust revisionist". In other words he may have broken Germany's law which forbids the expression of an opinion - that the Holocaust did not take place.

However understandable the rejection of those who deny the Nazis' terror, such a law is itself totalitarian, illiberal and tends to stifle the discussion (and proof) of what is true as well as what is a lie. That is why we do not have such a law in the United Kingdom and therefore (if that were to be the law on the charge sheet) this particular German could not be extradited to Germany.

It is, however, easy for the German authorities to "adjust" their extradition application to name a law which is also the law in the UK and then once the individual is extradited, charge him/her under a different German law (there is at least one example of their having done this). In such circumstances there is really nothing to stop ANYONE in Britain being extradited to Germany without the usual protections of British law and with no more than identification evidence.

Winston Churchill was in Germany during the 1930s, when the Nazis were in power, doing research on his ancestor the Duke of Marlborough. If the present European extradition laws had been in place then, Hitler could have accused him of having committed a crime whilst in Germany and had him arrested in England and extradited.   

There are only two protections now open to ANY British subject - illness (see Pinochet, temporary altzheimers - and Roisin McAliskey, predictably temporarily pregnant) or (as is potentially the case here with Herr Rudolf) that the "crime" is not a crime in the UK. But once extradited under the ludicrous European conventions who knows what might happen?

Incidentally although British politicians have agreed to extradite anyone to Germany, the German State rules out extraditing any Germans to Britain - a classic bit of reciprocity from our "European partners".