- May 10, 2006
- BY FED EX INTERNATIONAL AND FACSIMILE
TRANSMISSION
- Dr. Meinerzhagen
- Presiding Judge Landgericht Mannheim
- 68169 Mannheim,
- Germany Telefax (06 21) 292-1314
-
- Re: Zundel v. Gonzales, No. 3:03-CV-105,United
States District Court,Eastern District of Tennessee
- Zundel v. Gonzales, Chertoff, No. 05-5287,United
States Court of Appealsfor the Sixth Circuit
- Criminal proceedings against Ernst Zundel
for Suspicion of stirring up hatred against national, ethnic, racial or
religious groups and other offenses, Regional Court of Mannheim,6 KLs 503
Js 4/96
-
- Dear Dr. Meinerzhagen:
-
- I am writing to you on behalf of my
client Ingrid Rimland Zundel ("Dr. Rimland"), in response to
your letter of April 4, 2006.
- This letter should not be construed
as a recognition of any sort of jurisdiction by the Landgericht Mannheim
or any other German authority over the person of Dr. Rimland.
-
- After due consideration, and notwithstanding
the fact that she would very much like to see and help her husband, Dr.
Rimland hereby declines your request that she appear as a witness on her
own volition in the Landgericht Mannheim.
-
- Without waiver, she finds it unnecessary
under these terms to assert any privilege provided for under German law.
-
- She states in the strongest terms possible
her objection to the assertion of jurisdiction of the Landgericht Mannheim
over her husband, Ernst Zundel, and over the criminal charges that have
been filed against her husband because of his speech, the criminalization
of which is completely unknown in the United States and would be regarded
as a scandal by the vast majority of the American populace.
-
- Dr. Rimland, a citizen of the United
States of America, finds it deplorable as well that the Mannheim Public
Prosecutor's Office is conducting an investigation of her on similar allegations.
-
- Dr. Rimland considers it an insult and
an imposition that her testimony would be sought by a country which wishes
to criminalize her for conduct that is not criminal in her own country.
-
- Here in the United States, we are free
to comment critically about persons and movements of any ethnic group or
heritage or religion, and free to act nonviolently and politically to persuade
others of our views, without running the risk that we will be prosecuted
for "hate," and this is a form of legal protection that has long
helped insure us against great imbalances of power, discontents, deceits
and treacheries, and oligarchy and demagoguery, and we commend it to the
court and to the German people. We submit that German laws which, by criminalizing
speech, purport to protect Germany's citizenry against the forces and causes
which led to World War II are camouflaging a deceptive political agenda.
-
- Dr. Rimland likewise declines to provide
testimony or respond to questions via a videoconference link.
-
- Dr. Rimland similarly declines to be
examined by a consular official or other official by commission, whether
at a German consulate or any other location in the United States. She finds
it particularly offensive that officials of any German consulate should
examine her in light of her conclusion that German consular officials colluded
with Canadian and U.S. authorities for years to try to snare Mr. Zundel
in an extrajudicial rendition, which she bases on familiarity with German-
and English-language documents released by the prosecutor's office in the
case in which you are presiding.
-
- Dr. Rimland does reiterate, however,
that she has always been the owner and operator of "the Zundelsite,"
the website referenced in your letter, and I understand that you have already
read in open court a statement she sent to you so indicating.
-
- If the court wishes to submit a list
of questions to Dr. Rimland regarding her statement, she would consider
providing written responses.
-
- Request is also made that you advise
me consistent with Germany's international law obligations of any and all
measures of "judicial assistance" by the United States that the
Landgericht Mannheim or Mannheim prosecutor's office or any counsel appointed
for Herr Zundel may invoke, intends to invoke, will invoke, does invoke,
or attempts to invoke, in order to try to obtain Dr. Rimland's testimony.
-
- Finally, and on another subject, note
is made "for the record" of the inaccuracy and impropriety of
your adverse Decision on the issue of my status as legal counsel to Mr.
Zundel, authored by you and incorporating the inaccurate international
law analysis delegated to Dr. Hans-Georg Koch of the Max Planck Institute,
which was the subject of your last correspondence to me. As you should
know, Dr. Koch could reach the conclusion he reached only by arbitrarily
disregarding the plain meaning of "legal counsel" and then by
impermissibly limiting the definition of what is a restraint on Ernst Zundel's
liberty. Dr. Koch was prepared, in the service of an illicit agenda, to
recognize only the restraint that Ernst Zundel is currently suffering in
a German prison as a restriction on his liberty, notwithstanding the fact
that Dr. Koch went on to acknowledge that in the United States, the habeas
corpus remedy being prosecuted by the undersigned for Mr. Zundel is a classic
protection of a liberty interest and is a remedy that remains available
to him. The deplorable analysis adopted by the Court has not served to
increase my already-diminished confidence or the confidence of my client
in the German judicial system.
-
- Thank you for your attention to these
matters, and if I can clarify any of the above points, please do not hesitate
to contact me.
-
- Sincerely,
- Bruce Leichty
-
- cc: Ingrid Rimland Zundel
- Ernst Zundel
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