[Vision2020] Holocaust Denier gets Three Years

[Phil Nisbet]

I read this and thought it might be interesting to see the Iranians hold 
their upcoming conference in Austria.

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By VERONIKA OLEKSYN, Associated Press Writer
41 minutes ago

VIENNA, Austria - Right-wing British historian David Irving pleaded guilty 
Monday to denying the Holocaust and was sentenced to three years in prison, 
even after conceding he wrongly said there were no Nazi gas chambers at the 
Auschwitz concentration camp.

Irving, handcuffed and wearing a navy blue suit, arrived in court carrying a 
copy of one of his most controversial books — "Hitler's War," which 
challenges the extent of the Holocaust.

"I made a mistake when I said there were no gas chambers at Auschwitz," 
Irving told the court before his sentencing, at which he faced up to 10 
years in prison.

He also expressed sorrow "for all the innocent people who died during the 
Second World War."

But he insisted he never wrote a book about the Holocaust, which he called 
"just a fragment of my area of interest."

"In no way did I deny the killings of millions of people by the Nazis," 
testified Irving, who has written nearly 30 books.

The court said Irving had three days to appeal his sentence. His lawyer did 
not immediately say whether he planned to do so.

Irving, 67, has been in custody since his November arrest on charges 
stemming from two speeches he gave in Austria in 1989 in which he was 
accused of denying the Nazis' extermination of 6 million Jews. He has 
contended that most of those who died at concentration camps such as 
Auschwitz succumbed to diseases such as typhus rather than execution.

The convicted Irving after his guilty plea under the 1992 law, which applies 
to "whoever denies, grossly plays down, approves or tries to excuse the 
National Socialist genocide or other National Socialist crimes against 
humanity in a print publication, in broadcast or other media."

Irving's trial came amid new — and fierce — debate over freedom of 
expression in Europe, where the printing and reprinting of unflattering 
caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad has triggered deadly protests worldwide.

Irving's lawyer, Elmar Kresbach, said last month the controversial Third 
Reich historian was getting up to 300 pieces of fan mail a week from 
supporters around the world and was writing his memoirs in detention under 
the working title "Irving's War."

Irving was arrested Nov. 11 in the southern Austrian province of Styria on a 
warrant issued in 1989. He was charged under a federal law that makes it a 
crime to publicly diminish, deny or justify the Holocaust.

Irving had tried to win his provisional release on $24,000 bail, but a 
Vienna court refused, saying it considered him a flight risk.

Within two weeks of his arrest, he asserted through his lawyer that he had 
come to acknowledge the existence of Nazi-era gas chambers. Before the trial 
began, Irving told reporters he now acknowledges that the Nazis 
systematically slaughtered Jews during World War II.

"History is like a constantly changing tree," he said.

In the past, however, he has claimed that Adolf Hitler knew little if 
anything about the Holocaust, and he has been quoted as saying there was 
"not one shred of evidence" the Nazis carried out their "Final Solution" to 
exterminate the Jewish population on such a massive scale.

Vienna's national court, where the trial is being held, ordered the balcony 
gallery closed to prevent projectiles from being thrown down at the bench, 
the newspaper Die Presse reported Sunday.

It quoted officials as saying they were bracing for Irving's supporters to 
give him the Nazi salute or shout out pro-Hitler slogans during the trial.

In 2000, Irving sued American Holocaust scholar Deborah Lipstadt for libel 
in a British court but lost. The presiding judge in that case, Charles Gray, 
wrote that Irving was "an active Holocaust denier ... anti-Semitic and 
racist."

Irving has had numerous run-ins with the law over the years.

In 1992, a judge in Germany fined him the equivalent of $6,000 for publicly 
insisting the Nazi gas chambers at Auschwitz were a hoax.

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