Lebanese lawyers volunteer to defend French author

Lebanon's Bar Association has volunteered to defend a French author who is being tried in Paris for questioning the number of Jews killed in the Holocaust.

The Association announced after a meeting held Tuesday that five volunteer lawyers will travel to France to assist in the defense of Roger Garaudy, whose trial opened January 8.

Garaudy has accused Jews of exaggerating the number of Holocaust victims killed in Nazi death camps during the second world war to attract sympathy and world support for Israel.

In a book published in 1995, Garaudy described the murder of six million Jews during the war as a "myth."

Several Arab lawyers, whose governments do not recognize Israel, have volunteered to defend Garaudy and his trial has aroused anger in Islamic countries.

"We refuse that freedom of expression become a crime punishable by law and international platforms a subject for Zionist blackmail," Antoine Klimos, head of the Bar Association, was quoted by Lebanese newspapers as saying Wednesday.