Poor, poor David Irving. The Holocaust denier is finished crying into his coffee because Austria jailed him and is slipping into his new role: that of a crusader for free speech as well as martyr.

Earlier this week, he was released on probation from a three-year sentence imposed in Austria for a speech in 1989 in which he denied the Holocaust.

He served 13 months of the sentence and has now been banned from Austria.

The 68-year-old said he would urge an academic boycott of historians from Germany and Austria until the nations stopped jailing historians.

Mr Irving’s case sparked international debate about the limits of freedom of speech.

In his speech in Austria 17 years ago, he denied the existence of gas chambers at Auschwitz, though he later said he was “mistaken”. (BBC News)

Irving has declared that a “secret society” of judges in Britain is seeking to destroy him, claiming they have tried to hound him and his “partner” from the country. (I just wonder how this guy got anyone to date him.) As if a persecution complex and complete divorce from reality isn’t enough, he’s also comparing himself to another martyr for anti-Semitism.

The British historian David Irving, who spent 13 months in an Austrian jail for denying the Holocaust in 1989, arrived in London on an Austrian Airlines flight and said he would hold a news conference today on what he called “these absurd laws.” In a telephone interview before he left prison on early release, he made clear his disgust with Austria, which has now banned him from ever returning. “I have no interest in coming back,” he said. He termed his imprisonment an affront to free speech and said that it was dangerous for him to discuss his views before he left Austria but that “I think Mel Gibson was right.”

If only Irving would change his delusions to something gentler–like being the Emperor of San Francisco–he might have a better time of it.