February 21, 2006
A court in Vienna, Austria, has sentenced the revisionist British historian David Irving to three years in jail for denying the Holocaust. During two lectures and in an interview to a newspaper in 1989, Irving called the gas chambers a "fairy tale'', claimed that Hitler had had no role in the Shoah and had even "offered his hand to protect the Jews''. Irving told the court, which he addressed in German, that he had made a mistake by saying there were no gas chambers. "I am absolutely without doubt that the Holocaust took place.'' He also apologized to "those few I might have offended''. But in his ruling, Judge Peter Liebetreu said the court was not convinced that Irving had altered his views: "We have seen no evidence that he tried to come to Austria to say 'I have changed my mind' and to prove that he was a different person,'' the judge said. Irving, 67, gave himself stunned by the sentence, which could have been as long as 10 years. “I am very shocked and I am going to appeal,” he said as he was led out of the courtroom. His lawyer, who had been hoping for a suspended prison sentence, said: “I consider the verdict a little too stringent. I would say it is a bit of a message trial.”
