Austria's highest court rejects David Irving appeal

Austria’s Supreme Court has rejected an appeal by right-wing British author David Irving and affirmed the verdict, the Austria Press Agency reported.

In February, a Vienna state court sentenced Irving to three years in prison for denying the Holocaust, a crime in Austria.

The Alpine country’s highest court reportedly rejected the appeal during a closed session last week, APA said, citing a preliminary communication from the court.

A court spokesman did not return repeated calls for confirmation today.

A decision on an appeal of his sentence is still pending, APA reported.

During his one-day trial, Irving pleaded guilty and conceded he had erred in contending there were no gas chambers at the Auschwitz concentration camp.

“I made a mistake when I said there were no gas chambers at Auschwitz,” Irving testified, at one point expressing sorrow “for all the innocent people who died during the Second World War.”

Irving had been in custody in Austria since his November arrest on charges stemming from two speeches he gave in Austria in 1989 in which he was accused of denying the Nazis’ extermination of 6 million Jews.