JAILED HOLOCAUST DENIER, DAVID IRVING, FREED

Holocaust Denier Freed, Gets Probation (FORBES)
British author David Irving, imprisoned on charges of denying the Holocaust, will be released to serve the rest of his three-year sentence on probation, a court ruled Wednesday, and the government prepared to deport him. Vienna's Upper State Court granted Irving's appeal and converted two-thirds of his sentence into probation, said Anton Sumerauer, vice president and spokesman for the court.

Since Irving has already spent more than 13 months behind bars, the ruling means he will be freed from prison, Sumerauer said. His release was expected soon. A deportation notice for Irving had been issued "and contact has been made with the British Embassy," Iris Mueller-Guttenbrunn told The Associated Press late Wednesday.

When the verdict was announced, Irving said, "Your Honor, thank you," according to the Austria Press Association.

Efraim Zuroff, director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center's office in Israel, said the court's ruling was the "worst possible response to last week's Holocaust denial conference in Tehran and will only encourage those who support these mad ideas." Iris Rosenberg, spokeswoman for Yad Vashem, Israel's official Holocaust memorial, echoed Zuroff's comments. "It is unfortunate that a week after the highly publicized conclave of Holocaust deniers in Tehran, the Austrian court saw fit to reduce Irving's sentence to probation, since it may send the inaccurate message that Holocaust deniers can spew their lies about history with impunity," Rosenberg said.

Another Vienna court in February sentenced Irving to three years imprisonment under a 1992 law which applies to "whoever denies, grossly plays down, approves or tries to excuse the National Socialist genocide or other National Socialist crimes against humanity in a print publication, in broadcast or other media." The law calls for a prison term of up to 10 years.

During his one-day trial earlier this year, Irving pleaded guilty to the charge of denying the Holocaust. Despite his formal plea, he told the court "I've never been a holocaust denier, and I get very angry when I'm called a holocaust denier." Both the defense and the prosecution appealed the sentence. In September, Austria's Supreme Court upheld Irving's conviction.

Irving has been in custody since his November 2005 arrest on charges stemming from two speeches he gave in Austria in 1989 for which he was accused of denying the Nazis' extermination of 6 million Jews. He has contended that most of those who died at concentration camps like Auschwitz succumbed to diseases such as typhus rather than execution.