Irving wins appeal on Holocaust denial in Austria

VIENNA, Dec 20 (Reuters) British historian David Irving was set to leave Austria after winning an appeal today against a three-year prison sentence for denying the Holocaust.

Irving had been in jail since his arrest in November 2005 on a visit to Austria and was convicted in February for denying the Nazis' organised mass murder of 6 million Jews.

The 68-year-old appealed for a reduced sentence while the prosecutor wanted his prison term extended.

The Vienna court ruled the remainder of his three-year sentence should be changed from a jail term to probation.

''The fact that the offence was committed a long time ago, seventeen years, was a mitigating circumstance,'' said judge Ernest Maurer. ''We expect Irving will leave Austria immediately. We don't suspect he will commit another offence.'' Austria, which was part of Germany's Third Reich from 1938 to 1945, had issued an arrest warrant for Irving in 1989 for denying the Holocaust in lectures and in a press interview he gave the same year.

The self-taught historian was arrested 16 years later on his way to address an Austrian radical rightist student fraternity.

Irving had pleaded guilty at the trial in February, saying he had changed his views in 1991 after coming across some personal files of Adolf Eichmann -- the chief organiser of the Holocaust. The court had dismissed this as mere lip service to escape jail.

Prosecutor Marie-Luise Nittel told the court Irving had a strong following in the radical right-wing community and received a lot of mail in the 13 months he spent in prison.

''His comments were a real mockery of all the victims of the Nazi regime,'' Nittel today said. ''The impact of such offences shouldn't be underestimated.'' Denying the Holocaust is a crime in Austria, as well as in a number of other European countries such as Germany and Switzerland, and is punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

Austria takes a tough stand on Holocaust denial since a significant number of top Nazi leaders, including Adolf Hitler, came from the country. It is often accused by Jews and others of glossing over its past for decades after the war.

Efraim Zuroff, the head of Jerusalem's Simon Wiesenthal Center which hunts down Nazi war criminals, said the court's decision would ''only encourage and strengthen the Holocaust deniers throughout the world''.

Zuroff told Reuters: ''If you have such a law then, for god's sake, just stick to it.'' Irving's lawyer said his client would leave straight away and ''if he follows my advice, he'll give his first interview in England.'' Reuters SY GC2100