The Austrian newspaper Der Standard reports that the Vienna Court of Appeal has today commuted David Irving’s sentence – after a year of his three-year sentence for holocaust denial in 1989, he is now being released on probation. The court Ray Ban outlet expects him to return to England immediately, but wasn’t worried about that since it thinks it unlikely he’ll repeat his offence.
Hm. It’s worth noting that the president of the court, Ernest Maurer, is thought by many in Austria to be close to the extreme right-wing FPÖ – he was once nominated by that party to sit on the governing council of the national broadcaster, ORF. Only a few weeks ago the European Court of Human Rights condemned a defamation ruling made by this controversial judge in favour of Jörg Haider as being in breach of the media’s right to free expression. It’s not the first time the ECtHR has ruled against his pro-Haider judgments.
The court’s confidence that Irving won’t commit further offences is very strange indeed, given that he’s actually suspected of having repeated his holocaust denial in March 2006 while in custody. He’s alleged to have told reporters that Hitler did not Gafas Ray Ban outlet deliberately persecute Jews, and that there is no evidence of organised mass murder of Jews. Judge Maurer dismissed that as merely a shocked reaction by Irving to his conviction.
If the Austrian prosecutor wants to stop Irving leaving for Britain, she’ll have to obtain a warrant for his immediate arrest for the alleged March 2006 offences – let’s hope she does.
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