SASKATOON — Former aboriginal leader David Ahenakew told his hate trial Tuesday he still believes Jews were the cause of the Second World War.

The former head of the Assembly of First Nations and member of the Order of Canada is charged under the Criminal Code with wilfully promoting hatred against an identifiable group.

"So you still believe today, in 2005, that the Jewish people started the Second World War?" Crown prosecutor Brent Klause asked Ahenakew.

"Yes," he responded.

Ahenakew testified it was the Germans who told him that when he served overseas in the military after the war. He joined in 1951.

His testimony culminated a morning filled with tension. Agitated members of the public gallery at points yelled "racist" as Klause asked questions of Ahenakew in front of Judge Marty Irwin, who is hearing the case without a jury.

Ahenakew's defence lawyer, Doug Christie, in turn attacked the media for its reporting on the case.

The jeers against Klause came when he suggested to Ahenakew: "You are not an unsophisticated individual from some remote northern band."

Irwin asked Klause to re-phrase the question, which he did, but at the morning break he was approached by at least one individual who swore at him and told him he was offended by the remark.

Klause returned after the break and apologized to the court.

Ahenakew, 71, has said he believes he was goaded into making his controversial opinions public when he was interviewed by a reporter after a fiery speech in December 2002 to the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations.

"What it says to me is they are out to destroy," said Ahenakew, who charged that the story by Saskatoon StarPhoenix reporter James Parker was a "blatant distortion."

The speech and the interview led Saskatchewan Justice to bring the hate charges against Ahenakew.

He was on the stand Tuesday in support of his lawyer's application to have tapes of both thrown out as evidence.

The judge rejected that application late Tuesday afternoon. Christie had argued both were private conversations and can't be used in the prosecution of a hate crime.

Irwin already heard Monday how Ahenakew mentioned in his speech that he believed the Jews started the Second World War. A reporter later asked him for an interview, taped it and published his remarks.

"How do you get rid of a disease like that, that's going to take over, that's going to dominate?" Ahenakew told the reporter. "The Jews damn near owned all of Germany prior to the war. That's how Hitler came in. He was going to make damn sure that the Jews didn't take over Germany or Europe.

"That's why he fried six million of those guys, you know. Jews would have owned the God-damned world. And look what they're doing. They're killing people in Arab countries."

Ahenakew already testified he didn't think his remarks would be published and he didn't intend to cause an "international incident."

Klause pointed out Ahenakew has said in the past he has given at least a thousand interviews as an aboriginal leader.

Also Tuesday, Christie asked the judge to hold both the CBC and the Saskatoon StarPhoenix in contempt of court because they - along with other media including The Canadian Press - reported Monday what was on the tapes.

Christie's arguments to throw out the evidence were being made in a voir dire, which is held to determine if certain evidence is to be included in a trial. In jury trials, reporters are at least temporarily banned from reporting what is said in a voir dire in order to ensure the jury doesn't hear anything found inadmissible.

Irwin did not rule on the contempt argument and did not place a publication ban on the evidence. He did, however, urge the media to use "restraint" in reporting on the voir dire and to seek advice from their own lawyers on what to report.

"I quite frankly don't know the law well enough with regard to the evidence on voir dire," said Irwin, who noted that, if it were a jury trial, a contempt charge would be almost automatic.

Both inside and outside the courtroom, Christie threatened to hold members of the media liable for reporting on the voir dire if the evidence is indeed thrown out.

"What we need is a fair trial," Christie told reporters. "I think there is a potential for damages."

Ahenakew was 35 when he became the youngest man ever elected chief of the Saskatchewan Indian Federation in 1968. He served a record 10 years in that job.

He also served as chief of the Assembly of First Nations from 1982 to 1985.

He was named a member of the Order of Canada in 1978 for his work as a member of a United Nations committee and of the World Indigenous Peoples Council. He was also cited for years of service to Indians and Metis in Saskatchewan.