20 February 2006

Irving pleads guilty.


David Irving has entered a plea of guilty in a court in Vienna to holocaust denial. After his libel suit against Deborah Lipstadt went pear-shaped, he seems to have undergone some kind of change of heart. Finally, he tells the truth:

As he arrived at the court, he told reporters that some of his views had
changed, saying there were gas chambers and that "millions of Jews died".

Irving has been sentenced to three years imprisonment.

But the author and academic Deborah Lipstadt, who Irving unsuccessfully sued for libel in the UK in 2000 over claims that he was a Holocaust denier, said she was dismayed.


"I am not happy when censorship wins, and I don't believe in winning battles via
censorship...

"The way of fighting Holocaust deniers is with history and with truth," she told the BBC News website.

In the most recent development in the case, Irving is shocked at his sentence and will appeal. How do you appeal if you plead 'guilty' in the first place? Farce becomes broader farce.

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