David Ahenakew acquitted of wilfully promoting hate

A Saskatoon judge has acquitted David Ahenakew Monday on a charge of promoting hatred against Jews, but denounced comments the former aboriginal leader made in a speech and subsequent interview six years ago.

Ahenakew, the former head of the Assembly of First Nations, was charged after making inflammatory comments during a 2002 speech and interview with a journalist.

In his comments, the 75-year-old blamed Jews for the Second World War, called them a "disease" and seemed to justify the Holocaust.

However, provincial court Judge Wilfred Tucker said in his judgment that although the comments were "revolting, disgusting and untrue," it didn't appear to him that Ahenakew intended to promote hatred.

After hearing the verdict, Ahenakew hugged his daughter and told reporters outside court: "I'm glad it's over."

This was the second time that Ahenakew stood trial on the charge. He was found guilty at his first trial and ordered to pay a fine of $1,000. However, he appealed his conviction, which was overturned, and a new trial was ordered.

During the second trial, Ahenakew testified that he does not hate Jews but believes they caused the war.

"Everybody says I'm a Jew-hater," he told court. "I don't hate the Jews, but I hate what they do to people."

The controversy all began in December 2002, when Ahenakew gave a speech in Saskatoon during a health conference held by the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations.

In his speech, Ahenakew blamed Jews for causing the Second World War. A newspaper reporter later asked him to clarify his remarks.

"How do you get rid of a disease like that, that's going to take over, that's going to dominate?" Ahenakew said to the reporter. "The Jews damn near owned all of Germany prior to the war. That's how Hitler came in. He was going to make damn sure that the Jews didn't take over Germany or Europe."

"That's why he fried six million of those guys, you know. Jews would have owned the God-damned world."

Ahenakew's comments cost him his position as a senator with the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations, as well as his Order of Canada, which was taken from him following his first conviction.

Ahenakew's defence lawyer, Doug Christie, argued that the case should never have gone to trial.

Christie said his client was simply arguing with the reporter and did not want his comments published.

However, crown prosecutor Sandeep Bains told court that Ahenakew knew he was speaking to a reporter and agreed to be interviewed.

In his ruling, Tucker said he believed that Ahenakew did not intend to promote hate because he had not planned to speak to the reporter about his speech and had tried to end the interview.

Tucker also said he believed the comments Ahenakew made in his speech were not premeditated.

The Crown said it would review the ruling before deciding on whether to launch an appeal of the acquittal.

Officials with the Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC) said that while they respect the court's decision, Ahenakew's comments caused a great deal of pain to Canada's Jewish community.

"While Mr. Ahenakew has not been convicted, there is no doubt that his words and actions were anti-Semitic and we hope Mr. Ahenakew has come to understand the pain he has caused," CJC co-president Sylvain Abitbol said in a statement. "We urge Mr. Ahenakew to make amends so he can be remembered for healing rather than for hurting."

Pope outrages Jews over Holocaust denier

Jewish officials in Israel and abroad are outraged that Pope Benedict XVI has decided to lift the excommunication of a British bishop who denies that Jews were killed in Nazi gas chambers.
The pope's decree, Which was issued Saturday, Brings Bishop Richard Williamson and three other bishops who belong to the Society of Saint Pius X, back into the fold of the Catholic church..

The society was founded by Archbishop Lefebrve, who rebelled against the Vatican's modernizing reforms in the 1960s, and who consecrated the men in unsanctioned ceremonies. As a result, Pope John Paul II excommunicated the four in 1988.

The church's decision to lift the excommunication comes only a few days after a Swedish television program aired an interview with Williamson in which the 68-year-old claimed the Nazis did not use gas chambers.

"I believe that the historical evidence is strongly against -- is hugely against -- 6 million Jews having been deliberately gassed in gas chambers as a deliberate policy of Adolf Hitler," he said in the interview, which has since found its way onto various websites across the internet since its broadcast.

"I believe there were no gas chambers," he added.

He added: "I think that 200,000 to 300,000 Jews perished in Nazi concentration camps, but none of them by gas chambers."

Prosecutors in Regensburg, Germany, where the interview took place -- and where the pope once taught -- are investigating Williamson's comments on suspicion of inciting racial hatred. Holocaust denial is treated as a crime in Germany.

Rabbi David Rosen of the American Jewish Committee called the move by the Roman Catholic Church as quote "shameful."

By "welcoming an open holocaust denier into the Catholic Church without any recantation on his part, the Vatican has made a mockery of John Paul II's moving and impressive repudiation and condemnation of anti-Semitism," he said.

Abraham Foxman, director of the Anti-Defamation League, also expressed disappointment at the pope's decision.

"The decree sends a terrible message to Catholics around the world that there is room in the church for those who would undermine the church's teaching and would foster disdain and contempt for other religions, particularly Judaism," he said. "Given the centuries-long history of anti-Semitism in the church, this is a most troubling setback."

Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi called Williamson's remarks "absolutely indefensible."

He said the Vatican's decision to accept Williamson was part of its desire to normalize relations with the ultra-conservative group, and had nothing to do with the bishop's personal views.

But Rabbi Rosen dismissed as meaningless the Vatican's claim that the decision to welcome back Williamson did not mean the pope shared his views.

"That explanation "does not resolve the question of how can the pope or the Vatican -- committed to fighting anti-Semitism which the late Pope John Paul II called "a sin against God and man" -- embrace someone who denies or at least minimalizes the Holocaust."

Bishop Bernard Fellay, who now heads the Society of Saint Pius X, distanced himself from Williamson's position. He told the Italian newspaper, La Stampa, that Williamson was responsible for his own opinions.

The move has the potential to set back Jewish-Catholic relations, which was strained by Pope Pius XII. Pontiff during World War II, he is accused by some historians of failing to speak out against the Holocaust.

"While there are still hundreds of thousands of living Holocaust survivors amongst us who carry the scars of the Holocaust in them, to accept back a Holocaust-denying bishop raises questions if the Vatican under Pope XVI has learned the lesson of the Holocaust," said Amos Hermon, who heads the Task Force Against Anti-Semitism at Israel's Jewish Agency.

Some theologians say the decision by the pope -- who said he wanted to unite the Catholic church -- could be counter-productive. "This is not so much an act of grace as a surrender," Vatican analyst Marco Politi told The Times of London.

Pope Benedict was seeking reconciliation, "but the new era has begun with a lie. The pope has made a openly declared and unshakeable anti-Semite a legitimate bishop," Politi added.

The pope has twice visited synagogues, in the U.S. and his home country Germany, but recently stated, according to The Times, that dialogue between Christians, Jews and Muslims "in the strict sense of the word" was "not possible."

After his 14th birthday in 1941, Benedict -- then called Joseph Ratzinger -- was forced along with the rest of his class in Bavaria, southern Germany, to join the Hitler Youth. However his biographer John Allen Jr., said Ratzinger's family was strongly anti-Nazi.