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Austrian Nazi Alarm

VIENNA () -- Austrian public prosecutors said Thursday they were investigating the possibility of criminal charges against far-right Freedom Party leader J?rg Haider after he defended and praised Hitler's Waffen SS.


Haider's party captured 22.08 percent of the vote in Austria's general election Sunday and is the third largest in the country. It now has the biggest far-right parliamentary representation in Europe.


"We are conducting criminal investigations into the comments and speech made by J?rg Haider ... on the basis of the law against reviving Nazism," said Dietmas Pacheiner, public prosecutor in the southwestern city of Klagenfurt. An amateur video of Haider addressing a gathering in September that included several former SS officers has sent shockwaves through Austria since it was screened on the evening news Tuesday.

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