SUDDEUTSCHE ZEITUNG (Germany)
MUNICH – Extreme-right wing British writer David Irving, infamous as a Holocaust denier, has filed a suit to challenge a ban on his travel to Germany after local authorities in Munich had denied his request to visit the city, Suddeutsche Zeitung reports.
Irving, 74, is barred entry into Germany until 2022, based mainly on two convictions, including his declaration to a right-wing group in Munich in 1993 that the gas chambers shown to tourists in Auschwitz are fakes built by the Poles after World War II. A Munich court fined him the equivalent of 15,000 euros, and he was deported.
Irving is also persona non grata in Australia, Italy, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa. He is also forbidden to enter Austria where in 2006 he was sentenced to three years in prison for “re-engagement in Nationalist Socialist activities.” He was later deported to Great Britain. The Austrian entry ban expires in 2014.
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Irving in 2003 (Wikimedia)
As the Munich ban is older than the Viennese one, and Irving is a EU citizen, the Munich judge believes that the case needs to be examined in the light of EU law, Suddeutsche Zeitung reports. Within this context, January 2014 may be the appropriate time for the ban to end, assuming that Irving receives no new convictions before then.
