VIENNA (Austria), Feb 19: Right-wing British historian David Irving goes on trial on Monday on charges of denying the Holocaust occurred — a crime punishable by up to 10 years’ imprisonment in this country once run by the Nazis.
Irving, 67, has been in custody since his arrest in November on charges stemming from two speeches he gave in Austria in 1989 in which he was accused of denying the Nazis’ extermination of six million Jews. An eight-member jury and a panel of three judges will hear the proceedings, which officials said could produce a verdict as early as Monday.
His trial opens amid fresh — and fierce — debate over freedom of expression in Europe, where the printing and reprinting of blasphemous cartoons of the holy Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) has triggered violent protests worldwide.
Irving had tried to win his provisional release on euro 20,000 (US$24,000) bail, but a Vienna court refused, saying it considered him a flight risk.
His lawyer, Elmar Kresbach, said last month the historian was getting up to 300 pieces of fan mail a week from supporters around the world, and that while in detention he was writing his memoirs 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.
Within two weeks of his arrest, Irving said through his lawyer that he now acknowledges the existence of Nazi-era gas chambers.
In the past, however, he has claimed that Adolf Hitler knew little if anything about the Holocaust, and 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.
“What was he doing in Austria? God only knows. Possibly looking for an audience,” Austrian state television said in a pre-trial commentary.
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 on 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, which will continue into Tuesday if a verdict is not forthcoming on Monday.
Irving is the author of nearly 30 books, including “Hitler’s War,” which challenges the extent of the Holocaust, and has contended most of those who died at concentration camps such as Auschwitz succumbed to diseases such as typhus rather than execution.
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 US$6,000 for publicly insisting the Nazi gas chambers at Auschwitz were a hoax.—AP
