«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 spokesperson for Police Scotland on Sunday evening.
Vincent Reynouard, 53, was arrested by Scottish police on the basis of «French intelligence», confirmed a source familiar with the matter in France.
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 Oradour memorial. sur-Glane, France, whose population had been massacred by the SS Das Reich division on June 10, 1944.
In several videos broadcast on the internet, Vincent Reynouard had questioned this massacre.
Close cooperation between French and British justice was necessary to obtain his arrest.
«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,» General Jean-Philippe Reiland, head of the OCLCH, told AFP.
During his presentation before a judge in Edinburgh, Vincent Reynouard refused his extradition to France, said Mr. 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», underlined General Reiland, in particular on the Russian social network VKontakte or the American (ultraconservative and conspiratorial) Gab.
Vincent Reynouard’s last conviction (six months in prison) dates back to January 2021, for a video published in 2019 in which he denies the reality of the Holocaust.