- VIENNA, Austria - Right-wing British historian David Irving was sentenced
to three years in prison Monday after admitting to an Austrian court that
he denied the Holocaust " a crime in the country where Hitler was
born.
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- Irving, who pleaded guilty and then insisted
during his one-day trial that he now acknowledged the Nazis' World War
II slaughter of 6 million Jews, had faced up to 10 years behind bars. Before
the verdict, Irving conceded he had erred in contending there were no gas
chambers at the Auschwitz concentration camp.
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- "I made a mistake when I said there
were no gas chambers at Auschwitz," Irving testified, at one point
expressing sorrow "for all the innocent people who died during the
Second World War."
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- Irving, stressing he only relied on primary
sources, said he came across new information in the early 1990's from top
Nazi officials " including personal documents belonging to Adolf Eichmann
" that led him to rethink certain previous assertions.
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- But despite his apparent epiphany, Irving,
67, maintained he had never questioned the Holocaust.
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- "I've never been a Holocaust denier
and I get very angry when I'm called a Holocaust denier," he said.
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- Irving's lawyer said he would appeal
the sentence.
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- "I consider the verdict a little
too stringent. I would say it's a bit of a message trial," attorney
Elmar Kresbach said.
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- State prosecutor Michael Klackl declined
to comment on the verdict. In his closing arguments, however, he criticized
Irving for "putting on a show" and for not admitting that the
Nazis killed Jews in an organized and systematic manner.
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- Irving appeared shocked as the sentence
was read out. Moments later, an elderly man identifying himself as a family
friend called out "Stay strong, David! Stay strong!" before he
was escorted from the courtroom.
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- Irving 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.
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- Irving, handcuffed and wearing a navy
blue suit, arrived at the court carrying one of his most controversial
books " "Hitler's War," which challenges the extent of the
Holocaust.
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- Throughout the day, Irving sat quietly
and attentively in the stifling courtroom.
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- Irving's trial was held amid new "
and fierce " debate over freedom of expression in Europe, where the
printing and reprinting of unflattering cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad
has triggered violent protests worldwide.
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- "Of course it's a question of freedom
of speech," Irving said. "The law is an ass."
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- The court 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."
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- Austria was Hitler's birthplace and once
was run by the Nazis.
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- "He is everything but a historian
... He is a dangerous falsifier of history," Klackl said, calling
Irving's statements an "abuse of freedom of speech."
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- Klackl said the Austrian law does not
"hinder historical works."
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- "You have to look at each case individually,"
he said. "The point is, what is someone trying to do? It's the intent."
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- Kresbach, however, said people "should
have a right to be wrong."
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- The verdict was welcomed by the Simon
Wiesenthal Center, which also highlighted the issue of freedom of speech.
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- "While Irving's rants would not
have led to legal action in the United States, it is important that we
recognize and respect Austria's commitment to fighting Holocaust denial,
the most odious form of hatred, as part of its historic responsibility
to its Nazi past," the center's associate dean, Rabbi Abraham Cooper,
said in a statement.
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- 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."
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- Irving was arrested Nov. 11 in the southern
Austrian province of Styria on a warrant issued in 1989. He tried to win
his provisional release on $24,000 bail, but a Vienna court rejected the
motion, saying it considered him a flight risk.
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- Within two weeks of his arrest, he asserted
through his lawyer that he had come to acknowledge the existence of Nazi-era
gas chambers.
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- However, he has claimed previously 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.
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- Irving, the author of nearly 30 books,
has contended most of those who died at concentration camps such as Auschwitz
succumbed to diseases such as typhus rather than execution.
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- 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."
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- Irving has had numerous run-ins with
the law over the years.
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- 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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