Tuesday, February 21, 2006

More on Irving trial: There are consequences to your actions

After having a long conversation with a reporter who was in the courtroom, I have learned that it seemed to him -- quite clearly so -- that the judge was really angry about Irving's claims to have "changed his views" as of the 1990s.

"The judge had read every page of every transcript of your trial. He knew the judgment. He knew the experts' findings," this reporter said to me.

The judge knew that in 2000 Irving was in court suing you. He knew that Irving's claims to have seen the light and to no longer be a denier as of the 1990s was rot and that Irving was playing with the court.

Once again, as he did at my trial, Irving seemed to behave in a way that said: "I can do whatever I want, say whatever I want and get away with it."

The problem is, he can't. While I may disagree with Holocaust denial laws, while I may be disturbed by the sentence, David Irving cannot seem to grasp that there are consequences to his actions.

The Austrian court thought otherwise

1 comment:

Perry de Havilland said...

The issue here is not responsibility but legal liability. It is simply unreasonable to subject this fantasist to the sanction of law. Let him make an ass of himself, something he has proven very adroit at doing, but the Austrian state should have no role in this at all. It fact it is exactly the same issue as the Jyllands-Posten affair and clearly in Austria it would be hard to make a case that there is a legal right to say anything which some others might find offensive (such as the Mohammed Cartoons).