Friday, March 31, 2006

Zündel's Defence Lawyer Removed By Court

Just as Sergey predicted, Sylvia Stolz is history:
German court removes defence lawyer from trial of alleged Holocaust denier Canadian Press Friday, March 31, 2006,BERLIN (AP)
- A German court removed a defence lawyer Friday from the trial of far-right activist Ernst Zundel, charged with denying the Holocaust, accusing the lawyer of trying to sabotage the proceedings.
Zundel, 66, who emigrated to Canada from Germany in 1958 and lived in Toronto and Montreal until 2001, returned to court Thursday to face charges of incitement, libel and disparaging the dead. He went on trial before a state court in Mannheim in November, but proceedings have bogged down in a string of motions, objections and interruptions from his defence team.
On Friday, the superior state court in Karlsruhe said it suspected defence lawyer Sylvia Stolz of illegally obstructing proceedings "with the sole goal of sabotaging the trial . . . and making it into a farce." Stolz has a week to appeal the decision. Prosecutors accuse Zundel of years of anti-Semitic activities including denying the Holocaust - a crime in Germany - in documents and on the Internet. The presiding judge halted the trial on March 9 to ask for Stolz's removal after she denounced the court as a "tool of foreign domination" and described the Jews as an "enemy people" in earlier sessions.

Lesson #1: Don't listen to Horst Mahler

Lesson #2: It sometimes helps to find a defence lawyer least like yourself. Female was a good start; shame Stolz turned out to be a barking-mad Moonbat.

Oh yeah, this got posted before the doofuses at CODOH realised their hero just lost another lawyer. Heh.

Update: The Cesspit finally notices their hero's lawyer is in trouble.

16 comments:

  1. Stolz=Mahler

    Mahler is a clever guy and attorney BTW but it doesn't help your case much if you disabuse the other players in the court.

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  2. Or Milosevic.

    Fat men with titanic egos.

    Except Saddam, he's a bit thinner than the others.

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  3. This is really no surprise. Anybody who defends the heretic honestly will be dismissed by the court or risk being charged himself.

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  4. scott, insulting the court does not help any defence in any trial.

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  5. Roman said:

    << scott, insulting the court does not help any defence in any trial. >>

    But this court considers a not-guilty plea or any explanation to be blasphemous ipso facto, so there really isn't any way to sink lower. It's a sordid political trial and they should not be allowed to forget it.

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  6. Scott, don't be silly. It's obvious that if somebody rejects the authority of the court by claiming that "Germany is not a sovereign country", then it will be taken by the court as an insult. Or have you forgotten already yourself defending this argument?

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  7. The Bundestablishment courts might be competent to prosecute the bread thief, but they are way out of their depth here.

    I'm not saying that questioning the legitimacy of the Bundestablishment is a proper trial strategy any more than a U.S. income tax protestor claiming that the 16th Amendment was illegally ratified.

    But at the very least Zündel should have the opportunity to fairly argue that he is not spreading false history and that the Holocaust is not clearcut dogma.

    A trial in the court of public opinion is the last thing that a political trial can permit, however.

    Even if Zündel is dead wrong, in a genuinely pluralistic society he has the right to be wrong--and to say so.

    The Bundestablishment's Stalinist fascism is bound to backfire eventually.

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  8. > But at the very least Zündel should have the opportunity to fairly argue that he is not spreading false history and that the Holocaust is not clearcut dogma.

    Fully agreed. But that's not the point here.

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  9. In fact, idiotic German courts make it impossible for themselves to tear Zuendel to shreds on purely intellectual grounds. It is easy, if somewhat time-consuming, to establish the vacuousness of denial. It has been partially done during the Irving v. Lipstadt trial. So one already has a good base to build from.

    It could have been done in the German courts (although it should not have been done - Zundel et al. should not have been prosecuted in the first place). But all these lazy judges do is rely on the judicial notice of the Holocaust. Not a good situation, certainly.

    But then, people like Stolz do not help your side at all, don't you think? ;-)

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  10. Sergey said:

    << It is easy, if somewhat time-consuming, to establish the vacuousness of denial. It has been partially done during the Irving v. Lipstadt trial. >>

    Irving was completely out of his depth here, both as far as Revisionist arguments go and by acting as his own attorney. Unlike Zündel, he did not want to turn it into a Holocaust Trial.

    That's why he did not bring in Revisionist expert Rudolf, who reviewed and revised Leuchter's Report, which Irving had published. Irving was arguing that Lipstadt's Denier libel, intended to cause him financial harm with mainstream publishers, was absurd since any historical event has room somewhere for some doubt. But by using "Denier" Rudolf as his expert witness he would walk right into Denial by association.

    Lipstadt spent a lot of money to get her verdict in any case.

    << But then, people like Stolz do not help your side at all, don't you think? >>

    I don't think we're getting the full story. The court is expressly political and it will not abide the defense making the defendant's case, so they will clamp down hard and try to marginalize whomever is not sufficiently compliant.

    All parties in a political trial are expected to make propaganda, to denounce the blasphemy. Usually the supplicant cooperates too; as the heretic he has no choice.

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  11. Scott:

    Lipstadt spent a lot of money to get her verdict in any case.

    But it was Irving who sued her, not the other way round.

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  12. SCOTT:

    "Lipstadt spent a lot of money to get her verdict in any case."

    Roman said:

    << But it was Irving who sued her, not the other way round. >>

    And all Lipstadt had to do is answer for her lies. That shouldn't have been too hard; she wasn't a naïve schoolgirl in bobby sox.

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  13. SCOTT:

    "Lipstadt spent a lot of money to get her verdict in any case."

    Roman said:

    << But it was Irving who sued her, not the other way round. >>

    And all Lipstadt had to do is answer for her lies. That shouldn't have been too hard; she wasn't a naïve schoolgirl in bobby sox.

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  14. "And all Lipstadt had to do is answer for her lies."

    How about Irving answering for his lies?

    Oh, I forgot. He did just that :-D

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  15. << Roman said:
    If you claim that the trial was bent in Lipstadt's favor, this means that Mr Irving was a naive schoolboy who brought the disaster upon himself >>


    Yes, it was dumb--though Lipstadt deserved the lawsuit.

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  16. It's not that shocking that this blog's most toxic liar has the initials SS.

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