Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day029.01 Last-Modified: 2000/07/25 IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE 1996 I. No. 113 QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION Royal Courts of Justice Strand, London Thursday, 2nd March 2000 Before: MR JUSTICE GRAY B E T W E E N: DAVID JOHN CAWDELL IRVING Claimant -and- (1) PENGUIN BOOKS LIMITED (2) DEBORAH E. LIPSTADT Defendants The Claimant appeared in person MR RICHARD RAMPTON Q.C. (instructed by Messrs Davenport Lyons and Mishcon de Reya) appeared on behalf of the First and Second Defendants MISS HEATHER ROGERS (instructed by Davenport Lyons) appeared on behalf of the First Defendant Penguin Books Limited MR ANTHONY JULIUS (of Mishcon de Reya) appeared on behalf of the Second Defendant Deborah Lipstadt (Transcribed from the stenographic notes of Harry Counsell & Company, Clifford's Inn, Fetter Lane, London EC4 Telephone: 020-7242-9346) (This transcript is not to be reproduced without the written permission of Harry Counsell & Company) PROCEEDINGS - DAY TWENTY-NINE . P-1 (10.30 a.m.) MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Rampton and Mr Irving, before we start today, I wonder if I can hand to you now a list of issues? MR IRVING: Yes. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think I did mention earlier that it might be helpful -- it is up to both of you -- if we could perhaps take the issues in more or less the order in which I have set them out, if that is not inconvenient? I also want to make sure that I have got everything in that I need to cover, and that I have not included things that really are no longer live issues. Do not take time with it now. MR RAMPTON: No, I will not. There is one item in (i) of four which is still to come today from Evans, which will need to be added. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. It is just that either at a later stage today, or perhaps tomorrow, it might be worth spending a few minutes just going through that. MR RAMPTON: I do not think I will finish my cross-examination today. MR IRVING: That is very useful, my Lord. There are four or five minor points that I wish to raise before Mr Rampton resumes. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. MR IRVING: The first point is that I have repeatedly asked the . P-2 Defence to provide me with the speeches, the transcripts on disk, most recently about 10 days ago by letter. It would obviously assist me in responding to and rebutting these juicy morsels that they are tossed out of their cage into the courtroom, like yesterday. If I had such a thing on disk, and I am entitled to it of course under the rules, once the documents have been pleaded, I am entitled to have them in digital form. There is no reason for this delay other than a deliberate and wilful attempt to impede my response. MR JUSTICE GRAY: So that I am clear what you are asking for, is it a disk containing the speeches that you have made that the Defendants rely on? MR IRVING: No, it is a disk containing the transcripts. They are put into court by way of their pleadings in evidence. Obviously it exists in digital form. It is no great burden on them. It is five minutes work to do, just pressing one button. They could have done this 10 days ago, if not, indeed, when I first asked for them. MR JUSTICE GRAY: It does not sound an unreasonable request. MR RAMPTON: I have no idea. I do not deal in disks, I am afraid. I deal in paper. I will pass on that request. I am surprised it has not been responded to. If it is anybody's fault, I apologise for it on their behalf. If these transcripts -- and I think Mr Irving means the transcripts that are in the K files ---- . P-3 MR IRVING: Yes. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, which is racism, anti-Semitism, or allegedly so. MR RAMPTON: -- which are mostly his own words. If they are on a disk, which I imagine they must be, then by all means, if it is easier. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think I know they are on disk because I am not -- well, anyway, if it can be done, it should be done soon because Mr Irving needs it. MR RAMPTON: If it is possible, it should be done before the weekend. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Before the weekend, I agree, yes. MR IRVING: A not unrelated matter is that the Defence solicitors are still sitting on a number of my microfilms and papers. They keep promising to return them. When they returned my previous boxes of papers, they returned them in a totally disheveled state, which has not assisted me ---- MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is something I do not really want to get into now. Raise that, but perhaps at a later stage. MR IRVING: The third point, my Lord, is the Eichmann manuscripts. I gave the undertaking which your Lordship very properly required. The manuscript has now been placed in the public domain. It is on, for example, the website of Der Spiegel and elsewhere. I would ask that the undertaking which I gave should now be rescinded or . P-4 annulled, if Mr Rampton has no objection, in order that I am not---- MR JUSTICE GRAY: I suspect he may not really know the score on that. MR RAMPTON: I do not know the score. I am told that that version, which is the electronic version, that came to us from the Israeli Government cannot be used for any purpose but this trial. If it is on some website or other, then perhaps we can have our disk back so we can give it back to the Israeli Government, and people can use the public domain copy. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well ... MR IRVING: Without wanting to compare the public domain version word for word with the version given to me, I see that it has been published in the Guardian yesterday, for example. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I have seen reports which make it appear that you may be right. MR IRVING: Having given the undertaking ---- MR JUSTICE GRAY: What I am not in a position to judge is whether the whole of it is in now in the public domain. If the whole of it is, then it seems to me that you should be released from your, undertaking, but I am not going to release you now. I do not think this is really in a way Mr Rampton's problem. MR RAMPTON: My problem is that I am merely the conduit pipe . P-5 for this material. I gave my own personal undertaking in order to get the material released; I do not really feel I can break it. MR JUSTICE GRAY: To save time, what I am inclined to say is this. It does appear to me that there is good reason for supposing that it is in the public domain. If that be right, I do not see it is realistic to maintain the undertaking. I am therefore inclined to think it should be lifted, but I would like to give an opportunity to whoever it may be to make representations, whether through you or in some other way. MR IRVING: I do not want to be held in contempt. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Of course you do not, but the undertaking will stay until tomorrow morning. If somebody tomorrow morning wants to say that the undertaking should remain in place, I will hear argument then. MR IRVING: My Lord, tomorrow is Friday. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I know, but I suspect your cross-examination is going to continue until tomorrow. MR RAMPTON: I do not know that there is going to be any difficulty at all. The only difficulty I can see, and it is mere conjecture, is that there may be parts of the electronic version which has been given to Mr Irving for the purposes of this case and no other purpose. There may be parts of that which are not in the copy which has been released. . P-6 MR JUSTICE GRAY: That may be. MR RAMPTON: -- in which case I would have to maintain my position so far as those other parts are concerned. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am bound to say I am not sure that I understand why the Eichmann diaries are relevant because, if they were not, and they by definition were not, available to Mr Irving, I am not sure how they can be used by way of criticism. MR RAMPTON: I may say I rather agree with that. It is not my intention contention today at any rate to make any reference to them in this court. The fact is they do contain, as anybody can see if they read the public report, some statements made in 1960 something which, if reliable, demolish Holocaust denial really at one fell swoop, but so what. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I can see that there is a way in which they could be capable of being used in this trial, but I will leave you to take whatever course you think is right. MR RAMPTON: My present inclination, I am not saying it is the final inclination, is that this is something for the historians to argue about, rather than the lawyers in this court, but I will reserve my position for the present at least, if I may. I do not know, Mr Irving may have further things? MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think there is one other point. MR IRVING: There are two other points, my Lord. One is the . P-7 video of the Halle meeting on 9th November 1991. I wish to make submissions to your Lordship next week about the admissibility of that video, because it was the subject of a bitter dispute between myself and the instructing solicitors for the Defendants. It was a matter of withheld discovery, fraudulently withheld discovery. In fact, I was reminded of this by the OSS this morning. I put a complaint into the OSS over undertakings broken by the solicitors, and so on. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Who are the OSS? MR IRVING: Offices for the Supervision of Solicitors in Leamington Spa; a rather toothless body which watches over malfunctions by solicitors. So I would like permission to make a submission about the admissibility of the video as such. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. Do that when you like. In some ways it ought to be perhaps done sooner rather than later. MR IRVING: I had prepared a little bundle on this many, many weeks ago and I was just reminded of this actual matter this morning by this phone call from the OSS. The final matter is the little bundle I put before your Lordship headed "Documents on Mr Irving's 1991 arrest". MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. MR IRVING: This is the Lowenbraukeller meeting. It is a matter of my truthfulness, whether I am right or whether . P-8 the Defence submissions are correct, namely that I was a participant in an illegal demonstration or not. These are three or four documents on the police file which contain the statement that was made at the time of arrest and so on, which I have summarised in the two-page translation at this beginning. Either your Lordship can say now that you attach no importance to the issue of the submissions made yesterday as to whether I was telling the truth or not. It bulked quite large in the cross-examination but your Lordship may very well say you attach no importance to it. If your Lordship does attach importance to it, then I would ask permission to put these documents to Professor Funke, who is in the court this morning. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I do not think it matters a row of beans whether it was an illegal demonstration, or whether it was not. MR IRVING: I agree, my Lord. MR JUSTICE GRAY: The relevance, as it appears to me ---- MR IRVING: The question is my truthfulness. MR JUSTICE GRAY: -- is simply whether you did either participate in, or in some other way associate yourself with, the demonstration that one sees on the video.
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