An appeals court in the Czech Republic has upheld a lower court ruling that sentenced a prominent member of the country's neo-Nazi movement to three years in prison for racist song lyrics.
Michal Moravec, lead singer of the band Imperium, received the prison term from a court in the southern city of Ceske Budejovice in July 2009 for the promotion of neo-Nazism on the album "Triumph of the Will." Moravec appealed the verdict.
The album's name is the same as a Nazi propaganda film shot by filmmaker, Leni Riefenstahl.
Supreme Court spokesman Petr Knotig said Friday the court upheld the previous verdict but gave no details. The ruling by the Brno-based court is final.
Last year, Czech police detained former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke in Prague on suspicion of supporting or denying the Holocaust. Duke arrived in Prague at the invitation of local neo-Nazis to publicize the Czech translation of his 1998 memoir My Awakening.
Police detained Duke for claims in his book that the systematic mass murder of Jews and other ethnic groups by Nazi Germany during World War II never took place, a hate crime in the Czech Republic punishable by up to three years in prison, according to police spokesman Jan Mikulovsky.
Duke was planning to give talks in the capital as well as in the country's second largest city of Brno.
Earlier, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu won the elections, Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg said that the Czech EU presidency was not happy with some Israeli policies.
"We are not happy with some of the steps of the Israeli government, namely construction works close to Jerusalem but also access to Gaza, which is today very limited," daily Lidove Noviny quoted Schwarzenberg as saying. "The new Israeli government has not raised much excitement either."
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