During the 10-hour trial, Irving clutched the most famous of his 30 published books, "Hitler's War", which challenges the extent of the Holocaust. [Yahoo]

     "I'm shocked and I will be appealing," he said as he was led from a Vienna court by armed police.

    During the 10-hour trial, Irving clutched the most famous of his 30 published books, "Hitler's War", which challenges the extent of the Holocaust.

    "I made a mistake by saying there were no gas chambers," he told the court, which he addressed in fluent German. "I am absolutely without doubt that the Holocaust took place." He also apologised to "those few I might have offended".

    However, Judge Peter Liebetreu said the court was not convinced that Irving had altered his views. "We've seen no evidence that he tried to come to Austria to say 'I've changed my mind' and to prove that he was a different person," he said.

    Irving, 67, appeared in Austria's national criminal court on charges that he had denied the Holocaust during a visit to the country in November 1989.

    During two lectures and in an interview to a newspaper, Irving called the gas chambers a "fairy tale", claimed that Hitler had had no role in the Holocaust and had even "offered his hand to protect the Jews".

    The 22-page charge sheet listed some of the statements he had made, including the claim that the accepted version of the Holocaust -- the Nazi's systematic extermination of six million Jews during the WW¢ò -- was an "absolute absurdity" that "millions of people were led to believe".

    On Monday Irving tried to convince the three judges and six jurors that he started to change his mind in 1991, because of "new evidence".

    This came from the papers of Adolf Eichmann, in which the leading Nazi described visiting a gas chamber, and a friendship Irving formed with a Canadian professor whose family had died in the Holocaust and had "papers to prove it".

    "I like to find my own sources and work it out for myself," he said. Enditem

    (Agencies)