BBC caught in row over payment to academic who denies gas chambers

A disgraced academic sacked as an honorary fellow by a London university for claiming that the gas chambers of Auschwitz never existed is to have his views questioned in a BBC television programme.

Disgraced academic Nicholas Kollerstrom

Nicholas Kollerstrom was this week helping to make an edition of the BBC2 programme The Conspiracy Files when he became embroiled in a row over whether or not he was being paid for his participation.

Dr Kollerstrom had been dismissed by University College London in April after publishing a paper that claimed it was impossible for there to have been gas chambers at Auschwitz. His paper was subsequently reproduced on the website of the Iranian-backed Press TV.

This week it emerged that Dr Kollerstrom was the subject of one programme of a new series to be broadcast in the autumn. The BBC series will examine a number of conspiracy theories and theorists — of whom he is one — and the views they express on major terrorist attacks. The programme will deal mainly with Dr Kollerstrom’s theories about the 2005 7/7 bombings in London, in which 52 people died.