Austrian Court Rejects David Irving’s Appeal

Vienna – The Austrian Supreme court has upheld a guilty verdict against the world's leading expert on World War Two, David Irving. Irving was found guilty of “denying” the Holocaust on February 20th of this year. The court confirmed the guilty verdict in a closed-door session on August 29. Irving has been imprisoned for nearly seven months on a charge dating back to 1989.

In a bizarre twist, Irving insisted at his trial that he no longer questioned the existence of gas chambers at the Auschwitz concentration camp. Still, he was convicted as the court apparently did not believe that Irving was sincere. Irving was also on trial for having said that the November 1938 Kristallnacht pogrom was not the work of the Nazis, but of “unknown” people who had dressed up as storm troopers, and that Adolf Hitler had in fact protected the Jews.

Irving has also appealed the excessive three-year prison sentence, which he is now serving. The ruling on that appeal is not expected for at least two months according to the Austrian Press Agency.

Irving was prosecuted under an repressive Austrian law targeting those who “deny the genocide by the National Socialists or other National Socialist crimes against humanity.” Austria is among 11 countries that have laws against “denying” the Holocaust.