Czech far-right politician Adam B. Bartoš received a two-year suspended prison sentence with three years of probation for Holocaust denial, incitement to hatred and defamation of the nation in his texts and speeches, a Prague district court ruled this week.
Bartoš appealed against the verdict on the spot. State attorney Zdenka Galková is considering whether to appeal or not.
Bartoš, leader of the far-right extra-parliamentary party National Democracy, said the statements he had made and which the court challenged had became « common opinions, even among presidential candidates. »
Among those who came to support Bartoš in the court were failed presidential candidate Petr Hannig, a music producer and marginal politician who received 0.56 percent of the vote in the first round of the election two weeks ago.
Judge Pavla Hajková concluded that the prosecution was right to declare that Bartoš published antisemitic books and diffused speeches, articles and Internet comments presenting Jews as only possessing negative qualities.
The court said Bartoš presented misleading statements without any evidence in order to reinforce prejudices about the detrimental influence of Jews, immigrants and Muslims.
In his speech in the courtroom, Bartoš compared himself to Czech democratic politician Milada Horáková who was sentenced to death in a Communist show trial in 1950.
In a separate case, Bartoš received a suspended sentence for an antisemitic text he placed at the grave of Anezka Hruzova, murdered in Polna in 1899.
The rumour that the young woman was a victim of ritual murder spread after the crime and a local Jew, Leopold Hilsner, was found guilty of it without any convincing evidence. He was pardoned only in 1918. Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, later first Czechoslovak president, was one of those who fought the prejudice in the Hilsner affair.
