| London, April 12, 2000
Irving branded a "Holocaust denier" The protagonists BY GEORGE PENDLE David Irving faces a £2 million bill today after being branded a "Holocaust denier" by the High Court judge who rejected his libel action. In Judgment in delivering his judgment, Mr Justice Gray said: "Irving has, for his own ideological reasons, persistently and deliberately misrepresented and manipulated historical evidence". He added: "For the same reasons he (Irving) has portrayed Hitler in an unwarrantedly favourable light, principally in relation to his attitude towards and responsibility for the treatment of the Jews". He described Mr Irving as "anti-Semitic and racist" and someone who "associates with right-wing extremists who promote neo-Nazism". Mr Irving brought a case of libel against Professor Deborah Lipstadt, an American author, and her publisher, Penguin Books, over claims in her book - Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory - that he is one of the most prominent and dangerous "Holocaust deniers" in the world. Mr Irving said that the book portrays him as "an Adolf Hitler partisan who wears blinkers and skews documents and misrepresents data in order to reach historically untenable conclusions". The defence pleaded justification. Due to the complexity of the case, the jury was omitted. Mr Irving is now likely to face defence costs of £2 million. He had brought his case with the help of 400 supporters around the world. Eldred Tabachnik, QC, president of the Board
of Deputies of British Jews, welcomed the judgment,
saying: "The decision proves that David Irving is a
falsifier of history. Irving follows the short line of
Holocaust deniers who aim to resurrect Nazism by denying the
planned destruction of the European Jews. Although the
Holocaust itself was not an issue at the trial, we welcome
the fact that attempts to manipulate the truth about the
tragic events of that time have been shown to be
baseless."
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April 12, 2000 Jewish experts predict more battles to fight The man in shirtsleeves and waistcoat Judge is a skilled libel court combattant Judge delivers a devastating condemnation |
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