Telegraph | News | Irving says he has no choice but to admit charges of Holocaust denial

David Irving, the British revisionist historian, revealed last night that he would plead guilty to charges of Holocaust denial when he appeared in a Vienna court next week. Mr Irving, 67, who has been held in an Austrian prison since last November, said he did not consider himself to be a Holocaust denier but had no choice but plead "guilty as charged". "Under the law I've got no alternative," he told the television channel More4 News. But he added: "I deny that I'm a Holocaust denier. This is a filthy smear." The charges date back to 1989, when the Right-wing author of books such as Hitler's War gave speeches in Vienna and Leoben in which he disputed the existence of the gas chambers in Nazi concentration camps.