THE prison governor opens the door at 7 a.m., snaps almost imperceptibly to attention, and says: Mr Irving, we are deeply ashamed that this is happening. . .

Previously

December 21, 2006 (Thursday)
Vienna police prison (Austria) -- London (England)

A LITTLE procession of officers into my cell starts soon before dawn, something of a pilgrimage even.

The commandant himself, the prison governor, opens the door at 7 a.m., snaps almost imperceptibly to attention, and says: "Mr Irving, we are deeply ashamed that this is happening. We do not agree with this at all. We will of course have to treat you the same as any other prisoner," -- and I smile and say I expected no different.

The Fremdenpolizei take me in for interrogations; no surprises there either. Dr Schaller's middle aged daughter Elisabeth comes -- he himself is already in Mannheim, defending Ernst Zündel in that mammoth-length trial, almost ignored by the media. The police announce that I will be held another one more two days, pending flight arrangements; she insists on today, and gets me onto Austrian flight OS 455 leaving at 5:15 pm. She says my supporters hung around Vienna airport for six hours last night waiting to wish me well. She also says that my appeal victory dominated the TV discussion panels in Vienna yesterday, with the Jüdisches Kultusgemeinde and all the other usual suspects expressing outrage -- the Shylocks furious at being short-weighted on their pound of flesh.

(The British press is bemused that I am being detained two days "to speed my departure.") She says that George Kádár has tried to reach me. On her cell phone, in the police interrogation centre, I take calls from the local BBC reporter, who asks if she can come with a TV camera to interview me in this building; the officer pinks, when I ask, and panics, and says no. I suggest therefore, try the airport here this afternoon.

Still at the police officer's desk, still being questioned and stonewalling, I take another call, from Michael --- of Agence France Presse (I assumed from Paris, but afterwards realise with a dull thud that he is in Vienna). I feed him some safe lines;

• I tell him the prison governor has privately apologised this morning, in a very decent way,
• I stress that I am not a Holocaust denier; people who say the opposite have clearly never read my books of the last 15 years;
• Raul Hilberg said this year in Die Standard that 80 percent of the Holocaust has never been researched, and historians should not be imprisoned for thinking differently from others;
• that I have used my 400 days "recalibrating", and finally, on an impulse
• I feed him the words: "Mel Gibson [right] was right." (I do not state what saying I am referring to, and warn him not to put other words into my mouth). This will give him a headline story.

I phone John on her cell phone. He says that the Marriott in Governor Square have come under pressure and are reneging on their six-month-old contract with us booking the room for tomorrow's conference; they have been rather mysterious about it. Tell me the Old Old Story. I ask him to notify the PA and Channel Four, and they will be given new location details tomorrow. Newsnight has also cancelled, so it looks as if the Board of Deputies of British Jews got at them too. There has been excellent coverage in the BBC TV and other channels of the courtroom scenes. He noticed the prison haircut. Zoran,who administered it to me, is a Serbian serving nine years for various offenses.

Ms Schaller told me the basic one way flight will cost 437 euros, not cheap. British Airways are asking over nine hundred. I write for her brief replies to three questions put to me by Elisabeth Dickson of the agency AKROSON. I quote Daddy on British Justice ("the best that money can buy") -- She remarks once again that none of this would have happened if I had not fallen for that incompetent clown Dr Elmar Kresbach as my first lawyer. True, but possibly only one-hundredth of the media noise in consequence. My call for an international boycott of German and Austrian historians is going down well. Pure Dr Goebbels technique: Counter-attack, but elsewhere.

AN officer brings me some real Vienna coffee into my cell afterwards. At 12 mid-day the door opens and four officers traipse in with Gruppeninspekteur ---- at their head, and a young ordinary Inspekteur, Markus, and they ask for autographs. Two women officers come in later, one wants the signature for her son, 23. They all stay to chat, and all express private outrage at the whole episode. I wonder if "the Jews" realise the lasting harm they do to their own long-term interests by this prosecution fervour. As they leave, they make as if to leave the cell door open, as a courtesy; but I suggest they close it, to observe the formalities, es mache mir nichts aus. --

As the hours drag by, I begin to wonder if I was really foolhardy giving the Gibson teaser to a press agency while still on Austrian soil. I could hear the journalist typing the whole interview straight onto a keyboard and it will be on the wires by now. If he has embellished it, it might well land me back in the soup. This is after all a police state. I was very careful with what I did and what I did not say, but we know now what an evil-spirited journalist can do to flog his story.

12:30 pm: lunch -- dumplings and excellent goulash. After the meal Gruppeninspekteur Toni ---- comes in with a sheet of paper in his hand for an autograph. I compliment him on the lunch and also remark on the Abschaum that I have encountered beim Spazieren in Josefstadt jailhouse. Officer Toni loosens at once, and says: "Das ist die EU. Leider Gottes! Das ist der Untergang." One wonders why, and who is behind it, and he nods in silent endorsement.

Yet another medical. Blood pressure 158 today, pulse normal. "Sportgesund" says the woman doctor. Yes, but the muscles, the muscles … 400 days of inactivity, and the bed four inches too short.

BACK in the cell, three more hours, then in a chilly prison van with two unspeakable Romanian deportees to the airport. We are held outside on the parking lot for three hours in the cold van, as all flights to London are delayed by fog. My boxes of books and manuscripts have cost me an additional 400 euros excess baggage fee, at 12 euros per kilo. My cash has dwindled to nothingness again. In the terminal building the officers loosen up, we have coffee and I buy Austrian newspapers; this country's journalists are dutifully foaming with obscenities about me. What venal cowards journalists are. The Journaille, Goebbels called them.

Seven p.m. I take off finally, a good meal in business class: real meat! I decline the alcohol. We land at Heathrow around 9 p.m. A jostling pack of photographers is waiting on the catwalk off the plane, rather mystifying the passengers following behind me. More TV people wait outside the Customs area. I stay an hour talking to reporters and a young lady Associated Press interviewer. BBC TV cannot now use me -- I phone them -- because our flight arrived so late. Channel Four is also lost for the same reason. The profit-and-loss account of 400 days in solitary.

With so much baggage I have to take a cab to London -- another sixty pounds; I had hoped to get at least one media firm to offer to drive me. At Sloane Street by eleven p.m. or perhaps later; it is icy, damp cold, and a chilly sleet is driving down. . . Helped by police officers I load a taxi which they summon, and check into a hotel behind Victoria Station for the night. . .

December 22, 2006 (Friday)
London (England)

I WORK until 5 a.m. getting on line and checking emails etc. The nightmare continues. There are 5,200 emails addressed to [email protected] and 385 more surviving on AOL (which has automatically deleted all except the last month's messages).

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David Irving arrest in Vienna (dossier)