Vincent Reynouard served with second warrant in court
The convicted Holocaust-denier Vincent Reynouard has been handed a second warrant in court today.
Mr Reynouard, 54, appeared at Edinburgh Sheriff Court for the latest hearing in his ongoing bid to avoid extradition to France.
While sitting in the dock, Mr Reynouard was served the new arrest warrant in French and English. His lawyer, Paul Dunne, instructed him to “take your time and read it so you understand the nature of the offences against you.”
Mr Dunne told Sheriff Kenneth Campbell that it was “far from ideal” for his client to have been served a copy of the warrant in the dock, but that Mr Reynouard had “understood the charges”.Mr Dunne said of Mr Reynouard: “He does not consent to his extradition to France.”
Advocate depute Paul Harvey KC told the hearing that French authorities had made an error in their application for the first warrant, hence the need for a second warrant.
Sheriff Campbell told Reynouard: “You have now been served with this fresh warrant and you understand the general nature of the charges.”
Mr Reynouard was sentenced to jail for four months on 25th November 2020 by a court in Paris and again in January 2021 for six months, in addition to fines. His latest conviction is in relation to a series of antisemitic postings on Facebook and Twitter and a 2018 YouTube video for which fellow French Holocaust denier, Hervé Ryssen (also known as Hervé Lalin), received a seventeen-month-jail term earlier that year.
However, Mr Reynouard fled the country before serving his sentence and settled in the UK, where he reportedly worked as a private tutor teaching children mathematics, physics and chemistry. Private tutors are not required to undergo background checks.
In November, he was finally arrested near Edinburgh. In the intervening months, Campaign Against Antisemitism has been cooperating with French Jewish groups seeking Mr Reynouard’s extradition to France. Along with Lord Austin, an Honorary Patron of Campaign Against Antisemitism, we have corresponded with police forces and prosecutors in the UK and Interpol in an effort to locate Mr Reynouard and bring him to justice.
Scottish police reportedly arrested him at an address near the Scottish capital, where he was apparently living under a false identity. He was brought before a judge on the same day and refused extradition to France.
Late last year, Mr Reynouard appeared in court where it was heard that he had been granted legal aid. He will be back in court next month, with a full extradition hearing scheduled for February.
Mr Reynouard faces a sentence of almost two years in a French prison, in addition to any further sentence in relation to other ongoing proceedings.
The Office Central de Lutte Contre les Crimes Contre l’Humanité, les Génocides et les Crimes de Guerre (OCLCH) — the arm of the French gendarmerie that specialises in hate crime and war crimes — has been leading the investigation.
Mr Reynouard’s first Holocaust denial conviction was in 1991 for distributing leaflets denying the existence of the gas chambers at concentration camps. Holocaust denial has been a criminal offence in France since 1990. He has been convicted on numerous occasions and his subsequent sentences include multiple prison terms and a €10,000 fine.Mr Reynouard is alleged to have ties to Catholic fundamentalist groups that deny the Holocaust. In a recent analysis of the French far-right, the newspaper Liberation claimed that Mr Reynouard and Mr Ryssen are key members of a network of propagandists dedicated to the denial and distortion of the Holocaust.