The publisher of a far-right weekly newspaper and one of his columnists have been convicted of violating anti-discrimination laws in a 2006 article.

Dimitris Zafeiropoulos, the publisher of Eleftheros Kosmos, and columnist Theodoros Hadzigogos were convicted on September 18 by a three-member Athens Appeals Court and handed a five-month suspended sentence for violating Greek anti-discrimination legislation.

Mr Hadzigogos had written a 150-word article on March 12, 2006 in Eleftheros Kosmos. In it he wrote: "Thank God not even 1,500 Jews are left in Salonika now." He referred to "the supposed "‘soap-making' of the Jews" during the Holocaust.

After a previous ruling against the paper earlier this year, it published an article insisting that "the only thing any conviction will serve to do is to make us more obstinate in our struggle for these very ideas".

Their defence lawyer, Costas Plevris, was handed a 14-month suspended sentence last year in connection with his 1,400-page book The Jews: The Whole Truth.

Mr Plevris appealed against the conviction and his appeal will be heard on November 26.