British court blocks extradition of alleged Holocaust denier

Saw this on a spinoffenzee linken at LGF:

Germany will continue to pursue a well-known Holocaust denier even after a British court ruled against his extradition and set him free, a German state prosecutor said Monday.

And it's not D-blog pal David Irving!

Gerald Fredrick Toben is wanted on charges of denying the Holocaust for articles posted to his Web site, said Mannheim prosecutor Andreas Grossmann. Toben was arrested Oct. 1 on the German warrant at London's Heathrow airport while traveling from the United States to Dubai.

Didn't recognize the name, but I googled it with Irving's and found this in the Telegraph from October 3:

Historian Irving has offered a place at his home in Windsor, Berks, for German-born Australian national Gerald Toben who faces extradition to Germany on a European arrest warrant.

That Irving. What a sweet guy.

The German authorities claim Toben launched a campaign between 2000 and 2004 in which he posted anti-Semitic claims on the internet that "denies, approves or plays down" the mass murder of the Jews.

Toben's (or "Töben's") wiki (though not the papers) details the kind of shit he spews, on his own and as founder of the Adelaide Institute:

Töben has indicated that he considers the Holocaust to be a "lie" ostensibly perpetuated by "the Holocaust Racketeers, the corpse peddlers and the Shoah Business Merchants"; he has further asserted that "the current U.S. government is influenced by world Zionist considerations to retain the survival of the European colonial, apartheid, Zionist, racist entity of Israel."

The Australian had details of the British court's ruling:

[W]estminster Magistrates Court district judge Daphne Wickham ruled the extradition could not go ahead because the warrant contained only "sparse" details about Dr Toben's alleged offences, including exactly what they were, as well as where and when they took place.

"This judgment makes no determination as to whether the (alleged) conduct (of Toben) ... amounts to an extradition offence," Judge Wickham said.

"But I do find the particulars in the warrant are vague and imprecise. Therefore I don't find it to be a valid warrant and I can discharge the defendant."

Granting Dr Toben bail, the judge laid down a set of strict conditions including that he come up with pound stg. 100,000 ($247,465) in cash as security. He had to reside at a specific address approved by British authorities and report daily to police but not use the internet, speak to the media or attend public meetings.

As with Irving, who spent a year in jail in Austria for Holocaust denial, it's nice to contemplate Toben behind bars (or, even worse, denied use of the internet), but still: thank God for the First Amendment. First they came for the Holocaust deniers, and I laughed. Then they came for the Canuck Muslim-mockers . . . and I laughed again. But you get the idea.

Two quotes from "historian" Irving, by the way, the first from the Telegraph story, before Toben was released:

However, Irving claimed outside court that the case showed that living in England was like being in Nazi Germany.

Of course it is! Isn't that why Irving lives there? (Mein Fuehrer!). The second quote, however, is from the Australian, after Toben's release:

When Dr Toben was released, Mr Irving said: "We defeated Germany again; we've defeated Europe in fact. We've always believed in freedom of speech in this country, no matter how crazy people's views are."

Yeah, crazy. Have another drink, Davey.