Roger Garaudy
Roger Garaudy or Ragaa (born July 17, 1913, in Marseille) is a French author and Muslim convert who drew public attention for his stance and writings as a Holocaust denier.
During World War II, Garaudy was imprisoned in Djelfa, Algeria, as a prisoner of war of Vichy France; he was a member of the French Communist Party who tried to reconcile Marxism with Roman Catholicism in the 1970s, and then abandoned both doctrines in favour of Sunni Islam when he became Muslim in 1982, taking his new name. He currently lives in Spain.
Garaudy was a communist who tried to reconcile Marxism with Catholicism in the 1970s and then abandoned both doctrines in favour of Sunni Islam when he became Muslim in 1982, taking the name Ragaa.
In 1998, a French court found him guilty of Holocaust denial and racial defamation, fining him FF 120,000 ($40,000) for his 1995 book Mythes fondateurs de la politique israélienne. Endorsing the views of French Holocaust denier Robert Faurisson, the book declared that during the Holocaust, Jews were not killed in gas chambers. The book was quickly translated into Arabic and Persian, and a Sudanese lawyer, Faruk M. Abu Eissa, assembled a five-man legal team to support Garaudy at his trial in Paris. The Iranian government paid some of Garaudy's fine. Garaudy is also known to be a friend of Abbé Pierre.
