British Officials Oust American for His Views on Nazis’ Toll

LONDON —  Britain has deported a Massachusetts man who claims no mass extermination took place in Nazi concentration camps, the Home Office said Sunday.

Fred Leuchter Jr. was flown to New York on Saturday evening aboard a British Airways flight, a Home Office official said.

He said that Leuchter, 49, was barred from Britain on the grounds that his presence would not be conducive to the public good.

Home Secretary Kenneth Baker enacted the order in October upon word that Leuchter planned to visit Britain, the spokesman said on condition of anonymity.

Leuchter, who describes himself as a scientist, claims that Holocaust survivors exaggerated the number of people executed in Nazi gas chambers during World War II.

A spokeswoman at Scotland Yard said Leuchter was arrested during a London meeting Friday night on suspicion of being an illegal immigrant.

The Sunday Telegraph reported that police interrupted Leuchter during a speech and spirited him away, causing the audience of 150 people to begin chanting, “Freedom of speech!”