A Moroccan won first prize on Wednesday in Iran's International Holocaust Cartoons Contest, which had sparked outrage in Israel, the West and among Jewish groups.

Iran's best-selling newspaper, Hamshahri, launched a competition in February to find the best cartoon about the Holocaust, in which 6 million Jews were killed by the Nazis.

The contest was a retaliation for last year's publication of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad in Danish and other European newspapers that angered Muslims worldwide.

Presenting a prize to a representative of Moroccan cartoonist Abdellah Derkaoui, Culture and Islamic Guidance Minister Mohammad Hossein Saffar-Harandi praised Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who has described the Holocaust as a"myth".

"Our president was the brave and freedom-seeking person who started this debate without being concerned about its consequences," Saffar-Harandi said.

Derkaoui's cartoon shows a crane with a Star of David sign, putting up blocks making a wall separating the Muslim shrine, the Dome of the Rock, from Jerusalem. The wall has a gate, shown in the distance, that looks like one at the Auschwitz concentration camp, where Jews were incarcerated and killed.