Sentenced several times for questioning the extermination of Jews in Europe during the Second World War, Frenchman Vincent Reynouard was arrested at the end of the week in the United Kingdom, franceinfo learned on Sunday.
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Vincent Reynouard, a 53-year-old Frenchman known and convicted of Holocaust denial on numerous occasions, was arrested in Scotland on Thursday November 10, franceinfo learned on Sunday from concordant sources.
Vincent Reynouard was wanted to serve a one-year prison sentence to which he had been sentenced by the Caen Court of Appeal in 2015 for “disputing a crime against humanity”, after having questioned the existence of the extermination of the Jews in Europe during the Second World War. His conviction became final in 2020.
The gendarmes of the Central Office for the Fight against Crimes Against Humanity (OCLCH) also wanted to hear him in an investigation opened for tags in August 2020 on the walls of the Oradour-sur-Glane memory center (Haute-Vienne). The word “martyr” had been scratched there, that of “liar” inscribed next to it, as well as the mention “Reynouard is right”, in particular arousing the reaction of President Macron condemning “with the greatest firmness this unspeakable act”.
Vincent Reynouard had distinguished himself a few years earlier by denying the responsibility of the SS in the massacre of Oradour-sur-Glane, in which 643 people had perished on June 10, 1944.
An arrest warrant had been issued by the courts to execute the one-year prison sentence, addressed in particular to the United Kingdom where Vincent Reynouard seemed to have settled.
After escaping British police in 2021, the fugitive was arrested this time. Scottish police confirmed the arrest to franceinfo on Sunday “on behalf of the French authorities” of a 53-year-old man in the coastal village of Anstruther on the North Sea.
Legal proceedings are now underway so that the man can be handed over to French justice. Reached by franceinfo, General Jean-Philippe Reiland, head of the OCLCH, welcomed this arrest, welcoming the work of the Scottish police and seeing in it the message that “whatever the time it takes, we will look for French authors even abroad”.