BTW, David Irving's twin brother is highly sceptical of Irving's claim that he now believes millions of Jews were killed by the Nazis and that gas chambers did exist. Irving's twin, John Irving, holds totally different views to David irving and serves as chairman of Wiltshire Racial Equality Council.

Asked about his brother's recantation before a Vienna court, John Irving told The Times: "If I said 'E pur si muove!' would it mean anything to you?" The quotation is often attributed to Galileo who was forced by the Inquisition in 1633 to retract his heretical belief that the Earth moves around the Sun. The astronomer and philosopher was facing the death penalty but escaped with life imprisonment after disowning his findings. Under his breath, he is reputed to have murmured the now famous Italian phrase meaning: "Yet still it moves."

David Irving's books are sold via a website belonging to a publishing company run by Ms Hogh. Although he often claims to have rejected his old views, he makes the full texts of his works available on the internet for free downloading. Nuremberg: The Last Battle is filled with references to claims that Nazi gas-chamber atrocities were exaggerated by the Allies. Various versions of his book Hitler's War are freely published there too.

His website hails "the courageous Viennese students" whose invitation to Austria resulted in his arrest. It claims that, while in prison, he has handwritten a 600-page autobiography Irving's War. Irving makes regular visits to the United States, hosting the annual Real History, USA, Festival in Cincinnati. Highlights have included a showing of Leni Reifenstahl's notorious propaganda film Triumph of the Will about Hitler's 1934 Nazi congress in Nuremberg.