Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day029.19 Last-Modified: 2000/07/25 MR IRVING: There are two documents I am objecting to, one is the Muller document of which I still have not been given adequate information on its surroundings, its family and . P-168 where it comes from, and even if I am given the information I am not sure how I can put that before your Lordship, except by way of including my representations in my closing speeches which is clearly unsatisfactory because they will then have to answer to that. MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is the first document. MR IRVING: The second document which I object to in the manner in which it was presented was the video tape of the Halle speech over which we had serious altercations with the solicitors for the Defence, because it was withheld from me, most improperly and fraudulently withheld, which resulted in a hearing at a lower level, as a result of which the Second Defendant was ordered to provide an affidavit on her list, behind which I was not able to go. I was informed that she would be presented for cross-examination in the appropriate manner, which of course has now not happened. The object of that particular altercation was Halle video, and has now been presented to the court. I think that as they have misbehaved over that video, withholding it from me, it was then accidentally provided to me, it was returned with all my videos to me, that was the only way I became aware of the fact that this video consisted containing the real raw material ---- MR JUSTICE GRAY: You are giving me a bit of the history and I do not think now is the time to go into it, because you . P-169 need to get your thoughts together, but that is something I think ought to be dealt with sooner rather than later, because the way of the Defendants have put their case is quite a significant aspect of ---- MR IRVING: It is significant when it goes to costs, my Lord. MR JUSTICE GRAY: --- that compartment in the case. MR IRVING: It is significant when it goes to costs. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I do not know about costs, but I do think you ought to have the opportunity to make objections. I do not think that is a frivolous objection. I think the Muller document is in an altogether different category, if I may say so. MR RAMPTON: Can I take this these stages? The Muller document is in hand. Dr Longerich is in touch with the IFZ. As I have told your Lordship and Mr Irving at least once before, the reason we believe why Mr Irving could not get hold of it was that the file reference he gave, not through his fault, was wrong. We think that the document is both in Munich and in the criminal prosecution archive in the Ludwigsburg, and we will produce what we can find when we can find it. As to the Halle tape, can I say two things? That is the best version we have. If Mr Irving, by way of argument or submission, is able to point to features of the video, or indeed to extraneous evidence which demonstrates that that tape is in some sense, some . P-170 important sense, unreliable, why then, your Lordship can take that into account; not by way of whether or not it is admissible, but whether or not it should be given weight. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am not even sure about that. As I understand the objection, it is that it has been so heavily edited at various stages by various people that it gives a wholly false impression of what actually happened. MR RAMPTON: No. It has not been edited. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am not saying I agree with that. I am saying that that I understand to be the objection, and if that be right then it might be that it will be knocked out altogether. MR RAMPTON: It might be. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am not deciding it now obviously, but I think that that objection, if it is taken, ought to be disposed of one way or the other sooner rather than later. MR RAMPTON: If it is authentic and not a forgery and not, as it were, apt to mislead because of the way in which it has been edited, I mean mislead significantly, why then, it is admissible. It matters not what its provenance is. It matters not in the least what fraud Mr Irving may assert on the part of my solicitors -- I have to say I have absolutely no idea what he is talking about. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am not going to deal with it now, but if I am told by a party that there is a video which has been put in about which he wants to make, in effect, a . P-171 submission that it has become a bogus item of evidence ---- MR RAMPTON: It is not bogus. MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is effectively what I understand Mr Irving to be saying. MR RAMPTON: Then I will deal with it when I am fully instructed. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Quite. All I am saying at the moment is that I think this ought to be dealt with before final speeches, because one normally deals with these sort of evidential questions at an earlier stage, which unfortunately means that we will have to have another session sometime. I do not really mind myself whether it is tomorrow or Monday. MR IRVING: Next week sometime would be preferable. MR RAMPTON: I would rather not tomorrow because I need time. I do not want to relay half understood messages. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Then I think Monday morning is the right time to do it. MR RAMPTON: Monday morning might be all right, but first I need to know chapter and verse as to what Mr Irving's objections actually are, with supporting documentation. MR IRVING: I have put a clip together, but can I say that I expect it will be a conduct of the case matter, rather than a withdrawal of the video tape matter finally, if I can summarise it like that. MR RAMPTON: In that case, I really do not see the point of . P-172 wasting his Lordship's time, and I have to say mine, at this stage in the case. If it is a conduct of the case question it can only every reflect on costs or damages. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I do not know. I am not sure what the objections are. MR RAMPTON: Can I wait to see what Mr Irving actually says because I have no idea what he is talking about at the moment? MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. I hope we can avoid having a further session in court ---- MR RAMPTON: So do I. MR JUSTICE GRAY: --- but one thing I do want to deal with, and if it can be dealt with now well and good, is the list of issues, because I think it is going to make a huge amount of difference to my task for a start, and I think it is possible going to simplify Mr Irving's task if we can agree or possibly improve on the list and the order in which the issues are taken. If you have not had a chance to look at it ---- MR RAMPTON: I have not, I am afraid. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I wonder whether we can deal with that -- -- MR RAMPTON: I do not want to deal with it on the hoof, if your Lordship will permit me not to. This is a list very similar to that which I myself have composed. I really do want to be sure before I agree to anything that it is either not got something in that I do not read or has some . P-173 things missing. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, you obviously have not had a chance to consider it? MR IRVING: I have glanced at it and it seemed to be very useful indeed, but I hope not it is not an obligatory list, that I do not have to address all the matters that are contained in it. MR JUSTICE GRAY: You do not have to address any of them, but they are, it seems to me, all questions that I have to consider and, to an extent anyway, make a finding about. MR IRVING: Yes. MR JUSTICE GRAY: So if you do not deal with them ---- MR IRVING: I hear those words and I understand the meaning of them. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Rampton, do you want to say anything about them? MR RAMPTON: I would rather not say anything about them at the moment. MR JUSTICE GRAY: When are you going to? MR RAMPTON: What I will do, if I gain permission, is to write any additions or subtractions that I having thought about it tomorrow probably, that I feel in my client's interests ought to be made any amendments and then I will simply send it to your Lordship and to Mr Irving. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. I am again perfectly happy with that. Can you at the same time consider, and this obviously . P-174 applies to Mr Irving as well, what I think is very difficult in this case, which is the sequence in which it is sensible to take the issues, because they all mesh into one another and overlap and so on, and it is quite important that the judgment ---- MR IRVING: As drafted by your Lordship? MR JUSTICE GRAY: What I am trying to do is to make the judgment flow, if that is the right word, or be comprehensible. MR IRVING: I am sure that your Lordship being an outsider will have synthesized the matters adequately and absolutely probably. MR JUSTICE GRAY: If you have any suggestions for improving it in that respect, then I would be grateful. MR RAMPTON: My Lord, I have some housekeeping that I am supposed to do. First, they are on the list, little sections for RWE 1 Staglich and Varela 8A and 8B. They are very small. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. That is that. What else? MR RAMPTON: I promised a response if I could get one from Professor van Pelt about those three labour camps that Mr Irving produced. I have the response and I would like to add it, if I may, as a supplement to Professor van Pelt's report. It contains some typographical errors but no matter. MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is all very well just throwing documents . P-175 at me, but this is another 20 pages. What is this? MR RAMPTON: The broad conclusion is very simple. They have got nothing whatever to do with extermination. Those are documents which deal with keeping up the levels of workers, because they date from a period which arrived I think in 1942, they deal with a period when the SS, unlike the preceding period, had started hiring out its workers to commercial companies like I.G. Faben and so on, and therefore there came a concern because these workers were no condition to do the jobs they were being paid for, and they were paid, there came a concern that the SS camps were letting their slave workers die like flies instead of keeping them fit and healthy to work in the factories. This is connected, according to Professor van Pelt, obviously and naturally with the fact that the Germans needing to recruit soldiers were having to take them from factories in the greater Reich, and so needed the slave labour to keep the war economy going. He then explains why this has absolutely no connection with the extermination, first, because the exterminees, if I can call them that, were not registered as worker prisoners, and second because of course they do not concern any of the extermination camps. MR JUSTICE GRAY: So it is exactly what Professor Funke says? MR RAMPTON: Yes, that is what Professor Longerich says. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am sorry, Longerich. . P-176 MR RAMPTON: It was observed by your Lordship in the course of the cross-examination that Mr Irving's questions were directed to the wrong witness. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Actually it was Professor Funke, was it not? MR RAMPTON: No, it was Professor Longerich. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Anyway, whoever. MR RAMPTON: So that is what that deals with. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Thank you very much. MR RAMPTON: I am not suggesting your Lordship read it now or anything like that, but I may make reference to it in closing. Then the next thing, my Lord ---- MR IRVING: Before we move on from that, my Lord, what kind of document is this? MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is further evidence which actually to be fair to the Defendants ---- MR RAMPTON: Mr Irving laughs ---- MR JUSTICE GRAY: --- resulted from your putting documents which I think had not really been seen before, I do not think they were disclosed documents ---- MR RAMPTON: Absolutely not. MR JUSTICE GRAY: --- in the course of your cross-examination, I thought it was of Professor Funke but I am sure Mr Rampton is right, it was Dr Longerich. Do you remember that?
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