The hunt was long and delicate. Holocaust denier Vincent Reynouard, convicted multiple times by the French courts for remarks denying the existence of the Holocaust, was arrested Thursday in Scotland, we learned this Sunday from the Scottish police and from a source close to the case.
The 53-year-old man was arrested by the Scottish police on the basis of “French intelligence”, said the source familiar with the matter, confirming information from the weekly Marianne. “He was arrested in the area of Anstruther”, a small fishing port located north of Edinburgh where he lived under a false identity, “on the basis of an arrest warrant” issued by France, has said a Scottish police spokesman.
In several videos broadcast on the Internet, Vincent Reynouard had questioned the existence of the Shoah or even the massacre of Oradour-sur-Glane (Haute-Vienne), whose population had been annihilated by the SS Das Reich division on 10 June 1944.
His hunt, led by the Central Office for the Fight against Crimes against Humanity and Hate Crimes (OCLCH), began in August 2020 when a tag “Reynouard is right” was found on the village memorial. Close cooperation between French and British justice was necessary to obtain his arrest.
A tough hunt
“There is no incrimination for Holocaust denial in the United Kingdom, but thanks to an old extract from a judgment of the Caen Court of Appeal in 2015”, which sentenced Vincent Reynouard to one year in prison for denial of crimes against humanity, “we were able to convince the British to go get him”, explained General Jean-Philippe Reiland, head of the OCLCH.
During his presentation before a judge in Edinburgh, Vincent Reynouard refused his extradition to France, said General Reiland. He was imprisoned pending a new hearing with a view to his possible surrender to the French authorities.
“I was very keen on his arrest. He still broadcasts many hate messages on the Internet where he has a large audience, ”especially on the Russian social network VKontakte or the American (ultraconservative and conspiratorial) Gab, underlined General Reiland.
His last sentence (to six months in prison) dates back to January 2021, for a video published in 2019 in which he denies the reality of the Holocaust.