German court sentences man to 18 months of imprisonment for denying Holocaust

The German Neonazi and Holocaust denier Gerhard Ittner was sentenced to 18 months in prison by a regional court in Bavaria on Tuesday.

The court in Nuremberg-Fuerth found the 57-year-old guilty of incitement and disparaging the state and its symbols.

Ittner distributed pamphlets denying the Holocaust between 2011 and 2012. Police located him in 2012 in Portugal, where he was distributing propaganda material via the internet.

Ittner caused nationwide protests in 2003 when he organized a right-wing gathering near the former Nazi party rallying grounds in Nuremberg.

He announced at the time that he was planning additional protests in Nuremberg.

Ittner was sentenced to two years and nine months in prison for incitement in 2005 and subsequently went into hiding.