AUSTRIAN prosecutors dismissed the three-year jail sentence imposed on the disgraced historian David Irving as too lenient yesterday and filed an appeal for it to be extended.

Walter Geyer, a spokesman for the public prosecutor’s office in Vienna, said that he believed the jail term to be inadequate in the light of a possible maximum sentence of ten years and Irving’s iconic importance to right-wing extremists.

The move coincided with an appeal for a reduction in the sentence by lawyers for the historian, who pleaded guilty on Monday to denying the Holocaust, a crime in Austria, in two speeches there in 1989.

During the day-long trial Irving, 67, insisted he had undergone a change of heart and that he now acknowledged the slaughter of six million Jews by the Nazis. He also acknowledged that he had erred in contending that there were no gas chambers at the Auschwitz concentration camp.

Elmar Kresbach, Irving’s lawyer, told reporters that his client, who has been in custody since November, would probably not serve the full three-year term because of various factors, including his age.

Irving has written many books, including Hitler’s War, which challenges the extent of the Holocaust. He has contended that most of those who died in concentration camps succumbed to diseases such as typhus.

In London yesterday, members of Britain’s neo-Nazi party, the November 9 Society, protested against the jailing outside the Austrian Embassy. A handful of activists, one wearing swastika badges, erected a banner stating: “Holocaust denial is not a crime.”

Kevin Quinn, leader of N9S, said: “We believe that all Europeans should be allowed to express our opinions. If we can mock Muhammad how come we can’t ask how many Jews died in the Second World War? If the Austrians don’t want to give people free speech, then we don’t want them in the EU.”

Steve Blake, editor of the BNP’s website, wrote: “It is beyond belief that a British pensioner faces three years banged up in an Austrian jail for making a speech 17 years ago in that country, during which he offered an alternative opinion about one particular aspect of European history.

“No other episode in history has such legal protection and it behoves the Jewish community in each and every European nation where such a bizarre law exists to help bring about the end of this singularity.”

Andrew Kaufman, chairman of the Association of Jewish Refugees, which represents survivors of Nazism living in Britain, welcomed the sentence. He pointed out that Irving’s purpose in Austria was to meet neo-Nazi activists. He was also on his way to Tehran to participate in a conference promoting Holocaust denial organised by the Iranian Government.

He said: “Mr Irving has a long track record of anti-Semitic agitation and as a falsifier of historical evidence to suit his political ends. Without convicting Holocaust deniers like Irving, the world cannot send a clear message that the perversion of history in this way is both unacceptable in a progressive society and offensive to Nazi victims and their families.”

A DAY IN THE LIFE

06.00 Wake up, wash in cell

07.00 Breakfast delivered to cell (bread, jam, coffee)

08.00 Work (kitchen, bakery, laundry, library)

10.45 Lunch (yesterday pork and potatoes, except for Muslim and Jewish prisoners)

14.00 Possible visiting time

16.00 exercise

17.00 Dinner (yesterday bread, fruit, cheese, canned fruit)

22.00 Lights out

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