Holocaust-denier David Irving was arrested Wednesday by police in Victoria, British Columbia, after slipping across the U.S. border in defiance of a ban on his entry to Canada.
The controversial British historian and author of pro-Nazi apologia was apprehended in a Chinese restaurant decorated with photos of Adolf Hitler, after policy had issued a countrywide warrant for his arrest.
He was giving a lecture, sponsored by a Holocaust-denial group called the Canadian Free Speech League. His talk had attracted an audience of about 50, many of whom followed Irving to police headquarters, singing “O Canada” and demanding his release.
Irving, 54, had scheduled a two-week speaking tour to similar groups in Calgary, Alberta; and Kitchener, Hamilton, Toronto and Ottawa, Ontario. But that was before Canada’s immigration minister, Bernard Valcourt, barred him from entering the country.
Valcourt ruled that Irving’s conviction this year in Germany on a charge of defaming Holocaust victims made him inadmissible to enter Canada under the country’s immigration laws. On Tuesday, a federal judge dismissed a motion to overturn that ban filed by Irving’s lawyer, Douglas Christie, who was with Irving at the time of his arrest.
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