Case Dismissed
February 10, 2009
He gave the interview last year in Zaitzkofen, Germany to a Swedish television company, Sveriges Television AB.
His lawyers demanded an urgent injunction from the Nuremberg and Fuerth state court to make the TV company remove the video sequence from its web page and cease licensing the interview for worldwide use, a court spokesman said on Monday, Feb. 9.
Williamson, who lives in Argentina, contended through his lawyers that when he agreed to the interview, he was not told it would be broadcast via the internet and outside Sweden. But the court rejected his claims.
He brought the lawsuit under German media law in the nearest court to Zaitzkofen, where the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX), the Catholic fundamentalist group led by Bernard Fellay has a German seminary.
Two weeks ago, Pope Benedict XVI re-admitted Fellay, Williamson and two other bishops to the Catholic church to heal a schism with the right-wing, ultra-conservative group. There was a storm of outrage when Williamson's opinions became known.
Criminal investigation
Separately, he is under criminal investigation in Germany for Holocaust denial, which is an offence under German law.
Population data indicates that between 5.1 million and 6 million European Jews disappeared under the Nazis' reign of terror.
Historical studies and court verdicts show about 500,000 were killed in mass shootings after the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, and hundreds of thousands, perhaps more than 1 million, were killed with gas in Nazi death camps such as Auschwitz.
Richardson alleged in the TV interview that the gas chambers did not exist and alleged "only 200,000 to 300,000" died in Nazi concentration camps. SSPX has suspended him from his job as head of a seminary in Argentina.