ZGram - 11/19/2004 - "Zundel Update: Judge can't help denier's wife"

[zgrams at zgrams.zundelsite.org]

ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny:  Now more than ever!

November 19, 2004

Good Morning from the Zundelsite:

Yesterday was our day in the Knoxville District Court - and an 
education it was for me and, I believe, for the handful of people who 
attended.  Our (partial) petition, as I explained in previous ZGrams, 
was our plea to the Judge to order the authorities to bring Ernst 
Zundel back from the Canadian Gulag for habeas corpus here in 
Tennessee.  Our entire submission is much more complex than that, but 
we had put the habeas corpus item on the "expedited track," hoping 
that we would be granted some kind of relief for the egregious 
government violation. 

We had a compelling human rights violation story on our side - the 
government, in this case the defendant(s), had nothing but brash 
chutzpah and brute "law".  And arbitrarily and shamelessly, they used 
that "law"  to beat down our petition.

Today I won't go into some of the interesting details of what was 
argued, and what was not allowed - I hope to get the transcript 
before long to put it on the Net.  You can get the general drift of 
this amazing and disturbing all-day hearing from the Knoxville 
Sentinel write-up below.  I will describe this day in more detail for 
our active financial supporters in our December Power Letter.  Let me 
just add that only PART of our submission was denied.  The case is 
still "alive" - and there will be a follow-up, believe me!

[START]

http://www.knoxnews.com/kns/local_news/article/0,1406,KNS_347_3339451,00.html

Judge can't help denier's wife
Woman trying to free husband, who disputes Holocaust, jailed in Canada

By JAMIE SATTERFIELD, satterfield at knews.com
Knox News - November 19, 2004

The wife of a prominent Holocaust denier made an appeal Thursday to a 
federal judge in Knoxville to help free her husband, who was booted 
from his Sevier County home last year and wound up in a Canadian 
prison.

"If somebody smashed my window, I have recourse with the law," Ingrid 
Rimland Zundel said. "If somebody smashes my life (by deporting her 
husband), I have no recourse. This is a political vendetta. This was 
a setup. My husband only searches for the truth."

U.S. District Court Senior Judge James H. Jarvis found himself in a 
troubling position.

He wanted to help but could not.

"This is a tough, tough case for me," Jarvis said. "But I've said it 
before, tough cases make bad, bad law."

Jarvis was disturbed not because he sympathized with the 
controversial views of Ernst Zundel, 65, but because it appeared that 
Zundel's case was driven, in part, by politics.

"His home country, Germany, wanted him for his preachings, writings 
on the Holocaust," Jarvis said, noting those views were published on 
Zundel's well-known Zundelsite Internet page. "This would be a felony 
under German law."

But Jarvis opined that he ultimately had no jurisdiction over 
Zundel's fate. The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service's 
decision to scuttle Zundel out of the country "was a discretionary 
one not subject to review by this court."

Zundel is a German-born graphic artist and publisher whose 
involvement with the 1980 pamphlet "Did Six Million Really Die?" 
rocketed him to infamy as a Holocaust denier and - as some allege - a 
neo-Nazi.

He lived in Canada for decades but had long been denied citizenship. 
In 2000, Zundel entered the United States under the visitor visa 
waiver program, which allows people to visit the United States for 90 
days at a time without having to go through the process of getting a 
visa.

However, as part of that program, Zundel had to sign a form in which 
he agreed to waive any rights to contest deportation if INS chose to 
take such action.

While in the United States, Zundel married Rimland and applied for an 
INS "adjustment" to his status here as a result of that marriage. In 
the meantime, his visitor visa expired.

In February 2003, Zundel was arrested at his home in Wears Valley, 
where he was preparing to open an art gallery, and deported to 
Canada. Once there, he was imprisoned and accused by the Canadian 
government of being a threat to national security. If he loses that 
court battle, he will be returned to Germany, where he faces a 
five-year prison term for his Holocaust views.

Memphis attorney Rehim Babaoglu handled the paperwork for Zundel's 
effort to get an INS adjustment. He testified Thursday that he had 
never before had a client kicked out of the country for overstaying 
his visa when that client was married to a U.S. citizen and had 
applied for an adjustment.

"I've never seen anything like this in my practice," Babaoglu said. 
"My opinion is someone took a shortcut, did what they wanted to do, 
had an agenda. I think the government's got another agenda."

Justice Department attorney Russell J.E. Verby and Assistant U.S. 
Attorney Suzanne Bauknight argued the INS had every right to deport 
Zundel.

"He overstayed his welcome under the visa waiver program," Verby 
said. "We have yet to see a law or regulation the INS violated."

California attorney Bruce Leichty, who argued the case for Zundel on 
Thursday, said he was not sure yet if he would file an immediate 
appeal of Jarvis' decision or try to drum up more evidence to try to 
get the judge to reconsider.

Jarvis said it was unlikely he would change his mind.

"It's a hard decision, but I think it's the right decision," Jarvis said.

The judge did, however, add a comment to Canadian authorities.

"(Zundel's) wife, she's a citizen, and she has rights, and she's hurt 
by this," Jarvis said. "Surely, the Canadian courts will listen to 
her as a United States citizen, perhaps give her some relief."

Ingrid Zundel has not seen her husband since he was imprisoned. She 
said her husband fears she, too, would be arrested if she went to 
Canada.

"My husband is not a violent person," she said. "He cries if a kitten 
gets hurt."

Jamie Satterfield may be reached at 865-342-6308.