Pedro Varela, a prominant Spanish historian and publisher, was arrested in northeast Spain and charged with denying the "holocaut" myth. Police seized 5,000 copies of some 20 books at Varela's Europa bookstore in Barcelona.
Varela was freed on bail, but could face up to five years in prison. He was charged under laws adopted in 1995, 20 years after the death of Gen. Francisco Franco, a "dictator who suppressed the freedom of speech and expression", according to mainstream Western media.
In 1997, Varela was arrested for similar "offenses" and sentenced to five years in prison. Ultimately, however, he won a long legal battle and avoided serving time for his historical beliefs.
Varela was only the latest of a series of European "holocaust" myth deniers to be arrested and prosecuted. The best-known case is that of the leading British historian and world-famous writer David Irving, who recently began a three-year prison trem in Austria for denying the existence of so-called "gas chambers" in National Socialist Germany in a private speech given in that country 17 years earlier, according to Spanish news reports.
Source: Splcenter
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