LONDON -- BRITISH writer David Irving is suing American Prof. Deborah Lipstadt (left) for lies about him contained in her book Denying the Holocaust, which she wrote at the commission of Vidal Sassoon, Yad Vashem, and similar agencies.

The trial of the action in London's High Court is due to start on Jan. 11, 2000 and is estimated to last three months. Lipstadt's lawyer Anthony Julius, senior consulting partner of the London law firm of Mishcon de Reya, dabbles as an author himself; he wrote a book exposing the antisemitism of T S Elliot.

Internet surfers can follow the trial on http://www.fpp.co.uk/Legal/Penguin/index.html

Mr Irving is also suing for libel Austrian-born journalist GITTA SERENY (above right). In 1996 she published in The Observer and in other newspapers around the world an article attacking David Irving disguised as a review of his biography GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH. The photo is by her husband Don Honeyman.

Read the trial dossier on http://www.fpp.co.uk/Legal/Observer/index.html

Answering one critic, David Irving writes: "Of course I don't sue people for criticising my opinions. What my critics ignore is that Lipstadt or Sereny accused me, among other things, of being a neo-Nazi, of speaking in public of 'our Führer', of destroying or stealing the Goebbels plates from the Moscow archives, of cheating on a colleague, of distorting and manipulating translations and documents, and of working hand in glove with the Hamas, Hizbollah terrorists, and Louis Farrakhan. Nothing to do with historical opinions."