David Duke, former leader of the Ku Klux Klan, has been kicked out of Italy, where he was allegedly trying to establish a pan-European neo-Nazi group.

An Italian court said Duke, a Holocaust denier who ran for the US presidency in 1992 and 1998, was "socially dangerous for his racist and anti-semitic views". The court yesterday backed enforcing a Swiss travel and residence ban against the 63-year-old, which is valid across the whole Schengen area.

Luciano Meneghetti, deputy police chief in the northern Italian province of Belluno, told Reuters that Duke moved to the Valle di Cadore mountain village after being granted a visa to study and write there by the Italian embassy in Malta.

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When police discovered the ban, which was made in 2009, Duke lodged an appeal with the Belluno administrative court to avoid expulsion.

And, according to the International business Times, the sentence added: "He was also previously arrested and expelled from the Czech Republic as suspected of promoting the launch of a movement for the suppression of human rights and fundamental freedoms."

Duke's lawyer Filippo Augusto said he left the country immediately. He could appeal again.