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David Irving: Faces week in Austria cell

The revisionist British historian David Irving is likely to remain in custody in Austria for at least a week, prosecutors say.
The authorities are considering whether to put him on trial for denying the Nazi mass extermination of Jews, the public prosecutor's spokesman said.

He was detained a week ago on a warrant issued in 1989 under Austrian laws that make it a crime to deny the Holocaust.

Mr Irving was stopped in the southern province of Styria, en route to Vienna.

If formally charged, tried and convicted, Mr Irving could face up to 20 years in prison, said the spokesman, Otto Schneider.

In his books, Mr Irving has argued that the scale of the extermination of the Jews by the Nazis in World War II has been exaggerated.

He also claimed that Nazi leader Adolf Hitler knew nothing of the Holocaust.

Read entire article at BBC News