English judges stick to the law - for the time being

For the moment the case of Frederick Toben, arrested at Heathrow Airport by our boys and girsl in blue on German demand because the man is accused of being a Holocaust denier (and for all I know, he is but it is not a crime in this country), has been suspended.

A London judge ruled yesterday that the European arrest warrant used to detain him for extradition earlier this month was invalid because it didn't provide enough detail.

But lawyers representing German prosecutors, who want to try Dr Toben for his alleged anti-Semitic views, are preparing to appeal to Britain's High Court.

It's the hard cases that prove the law. Dr Toben is clearly not a man one would normally have much time for. But the law is the law and freedom is freedom. However appalling the man is (and, as I have said before ad nauseam, he is no worse than people who still deny or diminish the crimes of Communism) the idea of him being arrested on British soil by British police officers for something that is not a crime here and handed over to a country where it is, remains abhorrent.

Well, it remains abhorrent to those of us who believe in the rule of law and in liberties under it. That does not include the average europhiliac.