France dropped hate charges against legendary singer Bob Dylan, Monday.
In a 2012 interview with the Rolling Stones magazine, Dylan compared Croatians to the Ku Klux Klan and the Nazis. Subsequently, he was charged with public insult and inciting hate the following year.
He was charged after the Council of Croats in France lodged a complaint against the singer.
While announcing the ruling, magistrate Marion Potier said her five-month investigation revealed that Dylan gave the interview to the American magazine without authorizing it to be also published in France, reports The Wall Street Journal.
According to Billboard, Dylan was quoted as saying to Rolling Stones, "Blacks know that some whites didn't want to give up slavery-that if they had their way, they would still be under the yoke...and they can't pretend they don't know that."
"If you got a slave master or Klan in your blood, blacks can sense that. That stuff lingers to this day. Just like Jews can sense Nazi blood and the Serbs can sense Croatian blood."
The problem might be over for the 72-year-old Dylan but the publisher of Rolling Stone's French edition finds himself in legal trouble. Michel Birnbaum was charged with violating anti-discrimination laws, the court said. He might have to spend a year in jail and pay up a maximum fine of $62,000.
According to Yahoo! News, Dylan would have faced similar punishment had he been convicted of the charges.
The Croats in particular are sensitive to being connected with the Nazis due to their alliance with Nazi Germany during World War II, reports the Examiner.
