COLOGNE, Germany — White supremacist David Duke, arrested in Germany ahead of speaking to a neo-Nazi gathering outside Cologne, plans to fight his arrest, The Times-Picayune in New Orleans reported late Wednesday.
A statement from Cologne police said Duke had “transit status” in Germany which meant he was not entitled to stay in the country, due to a travel ban from another European country, thought to be Switzerland.
Duke, 61, a former Ku Klux Klan leader and one time Republican member of the Louisiana House, was reported to have been living off and on in Austria for the past two years.
Germany’s Die Welt newspaper reported he was trying to talk to about 60 extremists last Friday when he was picked up by police. He was later released and on his website vowed to “fight this improper action.”
However, an unnamed woman who answered his Louisiana phone number told The Times-Picayune, “I know he has left Germany. Beyond that I’m kind of at a brick wall.”
Duke’s arrest came as German authorities said they had confiscated more than 800 weapons — including guns and rifles — from right-wing extremists over the last two years, news website The Local reported.
The revelation of the number of weapons seized came as part of the government’s answer to formal parliamentary requests by the Left party, seen by the Frankfurter Rundschau and Berliner Zeitung newspapers.