*** David Irving released ***

[zgrams at zgrams.zundelsite.org]

-- 


Pay attention:  One out - two more to go!

Free Germar Rudolf and Ernst Zündel!



=====




  http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article2087719.ece


'Holocaust denier' Irving freed from jail
PA
Published: 20 December 2006

British author David Irving today welcomed his release from an 
Austrian prison after serving more than a year following his 
conviction on charges of denying the Holocaust and said he was "fit 
and well".

He said he would be calling for an academic boycott of German and 
Austrian historians until their governments stopped putting 
historians in prison.

He was released after Vienna's highest court granted his appeal and 
ruled to convert two-thirds of his three-year sentence into probation.

Since he had already spent more than 13 months behind bars, the 
ruling meant he would be released.

He said later: "I'm returning to England. I'm fit and well but 
feeling sorry for my family.
"I'm calling for the academic boycott until the German and Austrian 
governments stop putting historians in prison.

"I was put in prison for three years for expressing an opinion 17 years ago."
His partner, Bente Hogh, 43, who lives in Chelsea, London, said: 
"He's rung to say he's coming back. It was half expected, because he 
has served over a year. I'm pleased - I don't think it was fair, to 
be honest."

The couple have lived together for 15 years.

Irving, 68, was sentenced in February 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, he pleaded guilty to the charge of denying 
the Holocaust but maintained he never questioned it in the first 
place.

Both the defence and the prosecution appealed against the sentence. 
In September, Austria's highest court upheld his conviction.

Irving has been in custody since his November 2005 arrest on charges 
arising from two speeches he gave in Austria in 1989 for which he was 
accused of denying the Nazis' extermination of six million Jews.

He has argued that most of those who died at concentration camps 
including Auschwitz succumbed to diseases such as typhus rather than 
execution.