What do you mean what's going on here? Holohoax denial covers people who even question the official 6 million figure, not just outright deny it happened. Of course he's guilty as indeed we all are on this forum (I hope).

I know what Irving is thinking:

"Damn, I should have just insulted Islam instead!"

Better a guilty plea, than a phonied up recantation or plea agreement. Like he points out, the law is written in such a way as to include his statements. Even though he does not agree with the choice of terminology.

I've met Mr. Irving and he struck me as a stand up guy. He has a wife and child in England to support, which he does through lecture tours and also via book sales. It sounds to me like he took a calculated risk in going to Austria. If he had gotten away with it (i.e., not gotten arrested before leaving), then he would have received plenty of publicity which translates into sales and website donations. As it is, he got caught, and I imagine the prosecution was looking to make a deal with a limited sentence in exchange for a guilty plea. It's politics, after all.

And technically, he is guilty, as I believe the law prohibits questioning certain aspects of the holo-hoax along with outright 'denial.' I don't know all the details, but I believe that his statements in previous visits to Austria are what actually motivated the passing of the law he is charged with violating.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/02/24/nirving24.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/02/24/ixhome.html

Irving's girlfriend is left homeless and bitter
By Neil Tweedie
(Filed: 24/02/2006)

Bente Hogh surveys the enormous living room of the £6,000-a-month flat in Queen Anne's Gate that will soon cease to be her home.

"It was foolish of him to rent it - we can't possibly afford it - but he's like that," she says. "He saw it and thought it would be fun."

It is not easy being the consort of David Irving, the internationally reviled author, Hitler apologist, Holocaust denier and new recruit to the Austrian prison system.

Miss Hogh, Irving's partner of 14 years and the mother of his 12-year-old daughter Jessica, is not only broke but about to be made homeless.

Within weeks, she will be forced to leave the flat, situated in one of the most expensive streets in central London. Blue plaques record that Palmerston, the great Victorian prime minister, and Sir Edward Grey, the foreign secretary who took Britain to war in August 1914, lived in Queen Anne's Gate - credentials that will have appealed to Irving's snobbery.

"They'll be taking me to court soon," she adds. "I haven't got the money to stay.

"It was a stupid, feeblewitted thing to do."

Miss Hogh, 42, the daughter of a Danish dentist, is talking of her partner's decision to visit Austria on a speaking tour in November last year, despite being the subject of an arrest warrant issued by that country in 1989. Irving, 67, was on his way to address a Right-wing student fraternity when he was arrested.

The warrant followed two speeches during which the now discredited historian repeated his thesis that the gas chambers at Auschwitz were a fantasy, and that Hitler had protected the Jews for a period during the war.

As such, they were clear violations of the country's law against Holocaust denial, introduced in the aftermath of the Second World War.

The result was a three-year prison sentence imposed in Vienna on Monday, despite Irving's last-minute conversion into a Holocaust believer. The prosecution is appealing to have the jail term increased.

"Like him, I thought it would be a suspended sentence," Miss Hogh says. "I feel sad for him. He's getting old."

She speaks of him with cool detachment. How did they meet? "I was working for a property company and renting his flat in Duke Street," she explains. "Big mistake." She isn't laughing.

Irving was forced to sell the flat after his disastrous libel suit in 2000 against the American academic Deborah Lipstadt, who had accused him of Holocaust denial. After a three-month trial, the High Court in London sided with Lipstadt. Faced with more than £2 million in costs, he was driven into bankruptcy.

It is unclear how Irving was able to afford the rent of Queen Anne's Gate, although in the past he has enjoyed the support of wealthy men and women admiring of his views.

Miss Hogh's only work involves managing Irving's website. It is known, however, that some of Irving's assets were placed under her name to save them from his creditors.

Does she share any of his theories? "Of course not. They are laughable. He doesn't mind that I think that, though. He likes the game."

Will she stay with him? "He would have to show a great change in attitude."

Irving's twin brother Nicholas, a retired civil servant, and older brother John, a retired RAF officer, have both disowned his views, while he is understood to have seen little in recent years of his daughters by his Spanish wife Pilar.

She moved back to Spain after their divorce and has also described Irving's theories as "laughable".

Miss Hogh hopes to stay in London so as not to interrupt her daughter's education. It was to Jessica that Irving dedicated a verse cited in the Lipstadt trial as evidence of his racism.

It went: "I am a baby Aryan/ Not Jewish or sectarian/ I have no plans to marry/ An ape or Rastafarian."

Miss Hogh rules out a return to Denmark. "It's boring," she says. After 14 years with David Irving, a little bit of boredom might seem welcome.

Typical...get the heat off of them for jailing him for thought crimes by attacking his personal life.

What does it have to do with his research?

Clearly this is another hit piece on Irving, unfortunately it does lend credibility to the claims made by Birdman and others that Irving is able to live way beyond his means by cheating people.