His trial was scheduled for five days beginning November 8, 2005, but ran into an early delay when Judge Ulrich Meinerzhagen ruled that lawyer Horst Mahler, whose licence to practise as a lawyer was withdrawn in 2004 and who, in January 2005, was sentenced to nine months in prison for inciting racial hatred, could not be part of the defence team. Mahler had been associated with the violent far-left Red Army Faction in the 1970s, but had since become a supporter of far-right and antisemitic groups. Zündel's public defender Sylvia Stolz was also dismissed on the grounds that her written submissions to the court included Mahler's ideas. On November 15, 2005, Meinerzhagen announced that the trial was to be rescheduled to allow new counsel time to prepare.