Holocaust Denier Not Libeled, Says British Court

In a ruling today, the British court found that American professor Deborah Lipstadt and Penguin Books, her publisher, did not libel Nazi apologist and Holocaust denier David Irving in her book Denying the Holocaust.

The case was important because, in Britain, libel laws put the burden of proof on the defendant. In order to win, Lipstadt had to prove that Irving was in fact everything she said he was. The judge found:

that Irving has for his own ideological reasons persistently and deliberately misrepresented and manipulated historical evidence; that for the same reasons he has portrayed Hitler in an unwarrantedly favourable light, principally in relation to his attitude towards and responsibility for the treatment of the Jews; that he is an active Holocaust denier; that he is anti-semitic and racist and that he associates with right wing extremists who promote neo-Nazism.

Quod erat demonstrandum.