Samoan prime minister apologises for Nazi gesture in leaked video

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Samoa's prime minister apologised on Monday after a video emerged of him saying "Heil Hitler" and making a Nazi gesture at a family gathering.

Laʻauli Leuatea Schmidt, who leads the South Pacific island nation of about 220,000 people, was filmed making the gesture at a family reunion in 2007, when he was the deputy speaker of parliament.

The seven-second clip shows Mr Schmidt raising his right arm and a group of people surrounding him making the same gesture. He can be heard shouting “Hip hip!”, eliciting “Hooray!” in response, before encouraging and leading the 13 people visible in the clip in saying, “Raise your right hand, Heil Hitler!”, according to the Samoa Observer.

In his statement, published on the government's Facebook page, he did not dispute the footage.

“I recognise that those words and gesture were inappropriate and capable of causing offence and hurt and I apologise for using them," he said.

The video showed a private family gathering and was "not intended for the public", he said, adding that he "Nazism, antisemitism, racism and all forms of political extremism".

The video was published by the Samoa Observer, the country's largest newspaper, on Sunday.

Radio New Zealand said its reporter in Samoa had independently verified the clip.

The newspaper said it was not known what happened immediately before or after the moment shown, and Mr Schmidt's statement did not explain it. A member of the Schmidt family told the newspaper he was master of ceremonies at the reunion.

"That any responsible politician should say 'Heil Hitler' and give a Nazi salute in the 21st century is shocking and disturbing," Richard Evans, a historian of Nazi Germany, said in an email to the paper.

The video appeared days after the government reaffirmed its position to bar the newspaper from attending Mr Schmidt's news conferences and other official events.

The ban was originally imposed in November, when Mr Schmidt accused the newspaper of misleading coverage.

On Friday, Mr Schmidt confirmed that an aide had deleted photos of him from an Observer reporter's camera, taken in front of government buildings during an official event. He defended the move, saying the paper was flouting the ban.

The Observer has denounced the ban as "authoritarian", and the Journalists Association of Samoa has said it is "deeply disturbed" by the photo deletion.

Mr Schmidt has voiced strong support for Israel, as have several fellow leaders of Pacific island nations.

He wore a Jewish prayer shawl at his swearing-in last September and the ceremony also included the blowing of shofar, a Jewish ritual ram's horn.

"Samoa will not withdraw from supporting Israel as the country of God's people," he told reporters afterwards, local media reported.

The island nation is home to a tiny Jewish population, although there are no official estimates and no formal Jewish community.

Three Pacific islands, not including Samoa, have followed the US in opening embassies in Jerusalem since September 2023.