David Irving held in Austria

[Aeternitas]

David Irving held in Austria

November 11, 2005

THE historian David Irving has been arrested while on a one-day visit to Vienna. An expert on Hitler's Third Reich, he had been invited by courageous students to address an ancient University association in the Austrian capital.

http://www.fpp.co.uk/online/

[Agrippa]

If you find more information about that just let us know. Well, Austria has some of the strictest laws...

[Menydh]

Despite precautions, the Austrian political police are believed to have learned of the visit by wiretaps or intercepting e-mails.

...

[Aeternitas]

Well, I didn't find anything much this morning, but I did a search on Google news tonight and the story has reached several news sites. Here are a few links where the story is described in detail:

David Irving arrested in Austria

Irving Charged With Denying Holocaust

Right-wing extremist Irving arrested in Austria

Also in Austrian news sites:

David Irving in Österreich verhaftet

Britischer Rechtsextremer in Wien festgenommen

[Strengthandhonour]

I fail to understand what he did wrong? maybe it's illegal to be a historically accurate historian this days? oh wait they might be looking at this messages

[Aeternitas]

Originally Posted by Strengthandhonour

I fail to understand what he did wrong?

Holocaust denial.

[Aeternitas]

Irving faces week in Austria cell

The revisionist British historian David Irving is likely to remain in custody in Austria for at least a week, prosecutors say.

The authorities are considering whether to put him on trial for denying the Nazi mass extermination of Jews, the public prosecutor's spokesman said.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4448896.stm

[Menydh]

A week? weeks?

Either they charge him with holocaust denial, which will require a long trial, or they release him after the stipulated detention time in Austria (24 hours? 48 hours?) and then release him without charges.

Unless the Austrian Government is unsure of its chances to prosecute Irving for Holocaust denial, and now have realized that he's been detained without a cause and don't know what to do. That would be very clumsy.

[Phlegethon]

Well, apparently there is a warrant for his arrest, so they can keep him for quite a while. Even without an arrest warrant he can be kept jailed for 14 days, I think.

[Menydh]

14 days I think that is the maximum that someone can be detained here without accusation under the anti-terrorist laws here.

[Aeternitas]

How 'Holocaust denier' fought and lost

By Jon Silverman
Legal Affairs analyst

David Irving's reputation as a historian was shredded at the High Court in April 2000 in a devastating judgement.

At the conclusion of a libel action brought by Mr Irving against American academic Deborah Lipstadt and Penguin Books, Mr Justice Charles Grey described Mr Irving as a "falsifier of history" an "associate of right-wing extremists" and "an active Holocaust denier".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4449212.stm

[Aeternitas]

A little update:

Charges prepared against Irving

Austrian authorities have prepared charges against British historian David Irving, who was arrested 11 days ago.

The charges are linked to speeches he made in 1989 denying the existence of gas chambers at Auschwitz, prosecutor Otto Schneider has said.

Mr Irving, 67, can appeal against the charges under Austrian law.

[Menydh]

At the conclusion of a libel action brought by Mr Irving against American academic Deborah Lipstadt and Penguin Books, Mr Justice Charles Grey described Mr Irving as a "falsifier of history" an "associate of right-wing extremists" and "an active Holocaust denier".

Forgetting Historical Revisionism for a moment, it is frightening that a judge can make a statement describing David Irving (or anyone else for that matter) as an "associate of right-wing extremists" as if implying that it is a criminal action to associate oneself with such or such other idea.

Also, I wonder if before accusing Irving of being a "falsifier of history", the judge refuted all and every part of Irving's historical writings, or if (more likely), the judge made a gratuitous accusation.

[Dr. Solar Wolff]

My understanding is that there is some good evidence that the gas chambers at Auswitz were built after the war and that this might be proven. If all they have on Irving is this Auswitz thing, then they might decide to let him walk.

I don't know how widely known Irving's personal history is in Europe but he is not an academic-type historian. Shortly after the war, Irving, a young man, left England and took a job in a German shipyard to learn the language. Since that, he has dug and dug and gotten things no historian ever came up with. He rebuilt the history of the Second World War from the ground up. This is quite an achievement.

[Menydh]

I met him personally quite a few years ago, in his apartment on Duke St. in London, on a quick visit with a friend. Quite a nice chap. Then again on a revisionist conference in Chelsea.

On that conference, I also met that American former U.S. Government expert on extermination methods who I believe I told you about sometime ago, and who had to sneak into England after the Jewish community managed to ban him from entering the country, and who was not allowed to give his testimony since the police detained him and deported him as soon as he started to speak.

His testimony, as I mentioned before, was that during a research on Auschwitz funded by the U.S. Government he found no rests of Zyklon-B (which he assured me that should be found through chemical processing if it had ever been present, even 50 or more years later), nor evidence that the shower pipe system could have been used as conducts for any gas.

[Milesian]

Originally Posted by Mynydd

14 days I think that is the maximum that someone can be detained here without accusation under the anti-terrorist laws here.

He's lucky he wasn't detained in the UK then.
The government is pushing through new "Anti-Terror Laws" in order to allow suspects to be detained for upto 90 days.