Kristian 'Varg' Vikernes guilty of inciting racial hatred, French court rules

Norwegian metal musician fined £6,400 and given six-month suspended sentence for publishing racist screeds that attack Muslims and Jews on his blog

A French court has convicted Kristian "Varg" Vikernes of inciting racial hatred. The notorious Norwegian metal musician was handed an €8,000 (£6,400) fine and a six-month suspended sentence for publishing racist screeds that attack Muslims and Jews, reported Norwegian paper the Local.

Although Vikernes had attended earlier court proceedings, he and his lawyer were not present at Tuesday's proceedings in Paris. The 41-year-old had previously denied writing the racist blog entries, claiming that they were written by one of his many online impersonators. "At any given moment [there are] 350 people pretending to be Varg Vikernes on Facebook," he said. The posts in question had been written between March and June 2013.

Vikernes moved to France in 2010, after serving a 16-year jail sentence for the murder of his Mayhem bandmate Øystein Aarseth. A neo-Nazi with links to Anders Behring Breivik, Vikernes was arrested in a raid last July; although prosecutors claimed he might have been planning "a large terrorist act", the musician was released 48 hours later due to a lack of evidence.

In August, prosecutors moved ahead with this second set of charges, accusing Vikernes of hate crimes. During the trial, Vikernes told the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation that French police had fabricated the evidence against him in an effort to save face following their earlier raid. He vowed to appeal any conviction.

Vikernes has yet to comment on Tuesday's ruling.

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