HOLOCAUST revisionist Fredrick Toben has been granted leave to appeal against his three month jail sentence for contempt of court.
Toben was last month found guilty on 24 counts of contempt by the Federal Court in Adelaide for ignoring a previous court order preventing him from publishing racist material on the internet.
He was sentenced to three months in jail, but a judge today ordered that he will not be arrested until after the appeal hearing in August.
Today, the court heard Toben would appeal against the three month jail sentence and his conviction, for which he apologised during an earlier court hearing.
The court heard Toben has agreed not to leave South Australia until after the appeal, other than to travel to Melbourne to see his lawyer.
However, outside the court Toben said he would rather serve the jail term to “get it over and done with” and to enable him to leave the state to visit a “lady friend” in America.
“I’m now locked into the process until August,” he said.
Toben said he was simply following the advice of his lawyer, David Perkins, who was “the only man who would dare touch this case”.
“His concern is for free expression,” Toben said.
The case against Toben has been running since 1996, when the former president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry filed a complaint alleging Toben had published anti-semitic material on his Adelaide Institute website.
In 2002, Toben was forbidden from publishing offensive material.
In finding Toben guilty of contempt last month, Justice Bruce Lander said Toben had continued to breach the order, including publishing a document on the morning of the penalty hearing.
Today, Justice Anthony Besanko gave Toben until June 9 to submit his appeal, which is expected to be heard in August
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25575574-5005961,00.html