The Guardian reports that infamous black metal musician Varg Vikernes has been found guilty by a French Court of inciting racial hatred. Vikernes received a six-month suspended sentence and a fine of €8,000, or roughly $11,000, for writing blog posts attacking Muslims and Jews between March and June 2013. Vikernes was not present for the proceedings, which took place in Paris on Tuesday.
The 41-year-old Norwegian artist, who records music under the name Burzum and was previously performed with notorious black metal band Mayhem under the name Count Grishnackh, denies that he had any involvement in the blog posts in question. Vikernes claims that "At any given moment, [there are] 350 people pretending to be Varg Vikernes on Facebook." Despite his denial of the charges, Vikernes has still identified as a Neo-Nazi in the past and has written articles on the subject.
Anyone familiar with Vikernes' history knows that this is far from the first time he's encountered trouble with the law. In May 1994, Vikernes was sentenced to 21 years in prison for the arson of three churches, the storage of 150 kg of explosives in his home to be used in a terrorist attack, and most famously, the murder of his former bandmate Øystein "Euronymous" Aarseth. While in prison, Vikernes continued to record Burzum albums, and despite an escape attempt in 2003, he was eventually released in 2009 after serving just 15 years of his sentence. Vikernes moved to France in 2010 but ran into trouble again in July 2013, when he was arrested on suspicions of planning a terrorist attack, though he was later released for lack of evidence.
