David Duke was detained by police in the Czech Republic on Friday on suspicion of denying the Holocaust.

Police spokesman Jan Mikulovsky said the action was taken because Duke does that in his book "My Awakening," which is punishable by up to three years in Czech prisons.

Duke traveled to the republic to promote the book's Czech translation of the book at the invitation of neo-Nazis.

Mikulovsky declined to give any further details, citing an ongoing investigation.

Prague's Charles University also banned a Duke lecture scheduled there Friday for students taking a course on extremism.

Duke, a resident of Louisiana and a former Republican state legislator there, also was to have given lectures over the weekend in Prague and the country's second-largest city, Brno.