Holocaust Denier Given Jail Time
Right-wing British historian David Irving was sentenced to three years in prison yesterday.
Irving admitted to an Austrian court that he denied the Holocaust, a crime in the country where Adolf Hitler was born.
After pleading guilty, Irving then insisted that he now acknowledged the Nazis' Second World War slaughter of six million Jews.
Before the verdict, Irving conceded he had erred in contending there were no gas chambers at the Auschwitz concentration camp.
"I made a mistake when I said there were no gas chambers at Auschwitz," Irving testified, at one point expressing sorrow "for all the innocent people who died during the Second World War."
Irving, 67, stressing he only relied on primary sources, said he came across new information in the early 1990s from top Nazi officials that led him to rethink previous assertions.
Irving appeared shocked as the sentence was read out, and his lawyer said he would appeal.
"I consider the verdict a little too stringent," Elmar Kresbach said.
"I would say it's a bit of a message trial."