London  - Bishop Richard Williamson would fight to the highest court if Germany demanded his extradition from Britain to try him for doubting the scale of the Holocaust, it was reported Sunday.

His lawyer, Kevin Lowry-Mullins, said Williamson would resist after German Justice Minister Brigitte Zypries had told journalists last week that Berlin might ask Britain to arrest Williamson.

The Sunday Telegraph quoted Lowry-Mullins, who thwarted Germany's efforts to obtain extradition of another alleged Holocaust denier, saying he would take the case to the House of Lords, the highest court, if need be.

In a Swedish television interview last year, Williamson, 68, said just "200,000 to 300,000" Jews were killed in Nazi concentration camps during World War Two and there had been no gas chambers.

The US Holocaust Memorial Museum says 3 million Jews were murdered in Nazi extermination camps. Williamson has apologized for causing hurt, but has not withdrawn his assertions. Holocaust denial is a crime in Germany but not in Britain.

In Hamburg, Jews and Christians launched a week of brotherhood, a series of public talks and exhibitions which had been planned for over a year but were overshadowed by the Williamson affair.

Inaugurating the week, German President Horst Koehler said, "The dialogue must go on."

A Catholic speaker at the event criticized Pope Benedict XVI for re-admitting Williamson and three other fundamentalists to the church. Eva Schulz-Jander said she had no sympathy for move which had upset may people.

Williamson returned last week to Britain after being expelled from Argentina.

Zypries, in remarks to reports in Brussels, had said Friday that "in principle, the offence falls under the rules of the European arrest warrant. That means that Germany could indeed issue such a warrant."

Williamson's remarks had been recorded in Germany, giving the German courts jurisdiction, she said. The bishop is already under investigation in Germany for the comments.

Williamson, who has been residing at an undisclosed location in Britain after his expulsion from Argentina on Wednesday, later published a statement on the website of the British arm of the ultra- conservative Society of Saint Pius X expressing "regrets" about the "harm and hurt" which his Holocaust denial remarks had caused.

Williamson said Pope Benedict XVI had requested that he reconsider the remarks made on Swedish television four months ago, "because their consequences have been so heavy."

"Observing these consequences I can truthfully say that I regret having made such remarks, and that if I had known beforehand the full harm and hurt to which they would give rise, especially to the Church, but also to survivors and relatives of victims of injustice under the Third Reich, I would not have made them."

But as with the original remarks, his new statement published Friday only served to raise further controversy.

In an initial reaction from Rome, the Vatican dismissed the new statement as falling short of what the pope had demanded. Holy See chief spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said that the apology "does not seem to respect the terms" set by the Vatican.

Lombardi described the statement as "generic and equivocal," contrasting it to a request made by the Vatican to Williamson that he "clearly and publicly distance himself" from his remarks on the Holocaust. dpa