Aftermath
Protests were organized outside the court house in Canada, and near Leuchter's home in Malden, Massachusetts. However, despite the bad publicity Leuchter remained active until 1990, when his lack of qualifications to practice was exposed. In the late 1980s, following the Ernst Zündel trial, he was featured in both the Atlantic Monthly and Prime Time Live in items on capital punishment, neither of which mentioned his association with Zündel. Also following his involvement in the Zündel trial, Leuchter began giving lectures to Holocaust denial groups such as the Institute for Historical Review (IHR) about his research and continued belief in the conclusions to which he testified in the trial. A speech to the Eleventh IHR Conference in October, 1992, included the following remark:
| “ | In this case, it is myself that I post mortem — and the cadaver isn't dead! Much to the dismay of my executioners, the execution was so badly botched that I am able to stand here before you to speak the truth, and to tell the world that it is not myself, but the Holocaust story that is dead. I repeat for the record: I was condemned for maintaining that there were no execution gas chambers as Auschwitz, Birkenau, Majdanek, Dachau, Mauthausen, or Hartheim Castle. There's no proof for the charge, only innuendo, lies, and half-truths. Robert Faurisson, Ernst Zundel and others said this first. They, too, live as victims of botched executions, but nevertheless free to speak the truth in a strong and growing voice that repeats: No gas chambers, no gas chambers, no damn gas chambers!
Because I was somewhat naïve at the time, I was not aware that by so testifying I was offending the organized world Jewish community. By providing final, definitive proof that there were no execution gas chambers utilized for genocidal purposes by the Germans at these wartime camps, I established the simple fact that the Holocaust story is not true. What I did not know was that anyone expressing such beliefs is guilty of a capital crime: that of thinking and telling the unspeakable truth about the greatest lie of the age. I would have to pay for this crime. While I innocently told the truth in Toronto, plans were made, and subsequently implemented, for a major effort to destroy me. If I could be destroyed and discredited — so the reasoning went — no one would accept my professional findings, no matter how truthful. |
” |
In October 1990, the commonwealth of Massachusetts brought criminal charges against Leuchter for representing himself as an engineer without a license. Leuchter not only lacks an engineering license but has neither an engineering degree nor any other relevant professional certification or recognized credential - his education consists of a BA in history, which he completed in 1964. In 1991, the case was settled under the agreement that he will serve two years' probation for practicing engineering without a license. He admits to having no formal training in toxicology, biology or chemistry.
When he tried to sell parts of a lethal injection machine and other inventory from Fred Leuchter Associates, much of it items pending work for various states who refused to pay him for previously contracted or agreed work, he was again charged. Leuchter claims that the Massachusetts Attorney General had to explain that the sale of the offered equipment was not, in fact, illegal. His wife divorced him in this same period. Furthermore, states started to deny his contracts on the basis of his lack of qualifications.
Leuchter was arrested in and shortly thereafter deported from the United Kingdom in November 1991. He had been banned from entering the country by the Home Office and his entry and presence in the country was therefore considered illegal. Leuchter claimed that United States consulate personnel effectively refused him aid. He had been interrupted while giving an invited speech at David Irving's instigation; his talk followed immediately one by Robert Faurisson. Leuchter has blamed criticism of his work on an "international cabal... those who have unjustly attacked me and violated my rights... the Klarsfelds, Shapiros, and Kahns of the world".
According to the Institute for Historical Review, Leuchter subsequently took employment as a "telephone solicitor."
Read more about this topic: Fred A. Leuchter
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“The aftermath of joy is not usually more joy.”
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