Austrian court reduces jail term of British Holocaust denier
21/12/2006 16:25
An Austrian appeals court yesterday abated the prison term of a British
who denies the Holocaust, ruling he should complete the rest of his three-year
sentence on probation.
David Irving has been in prison for 13 months due to
Holocaust denial since his arrest in November 2005 in Austria.
According to a
report by the Austria News Agency (APA), Irving would be allowed to leave
Austria for London, with Austrian police escort taking him directly to the
airport on Thursday.
Irving had appealed for a reduced sentence while the
prosecutor wanted his prison term extended.
"The fact that the offence was
committed a long time ago, 17 years, was a mitigating circumstance," Chief Judge
Ernest Maurer said, adding that "We don't suspect he will commit another
offence."
This sentence triggered off vehement reaction in the local media
and social communities.
One of the Austrian jewish organization issued an
announcement, criticizing the sentence as "a wrong decision."
Efraim Zuroff,
head of Jerusalem's Simon Wiesenthal Centre which tracks down Nazi war
criminals, regarded the sentence as a signal to "encourage and strengthen the
Holocaust deniers throughout the world."
A spokesmen for the Austrian Social
Democrat said that he felt "shocked" by the sentence and thought it
"incredible." He added that the chief judge had links to Austria's far-right,
xenophobic Freedom Party.
Irving, 68, was regarded as one of the "idols" of
the European far-right.
Defying the evidence of Nazi's genocidal holocaust,
he often attempted to deny the Holocaust and claimed that Hitler "was not
purposefully to be hostile to Jews."
Austria issued an arrest warrant for
Irving in 1989 for denying the Holocaust in lectures and in a press interview he
gave the same year, and arrested him during his visit to Austria.
Denying the
Holocaust is a crime in Austria, as well as in a number of other European
countries such as Germany and Switzerland, and is punishable by up to 10 years
in prison.
Xinhua
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