- guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 12 April 2000 10.50 BST
Guardian Newspapers Limited is to ask the high court in London to strike out a libel claim by David Irving against the Observer, following the defeat of his case against the US academic Deborah Lipstadt yesterday.
Irving had sued the Observer and Gitta Sereny over a review by the author of Irving's biography, Goebbels - Mastermind of the Third Reich.
In the article, published in 1996 and headlined Spin time for Hitler, Sereny had accused Irving of deliberately falsifying history. So far the newspaper group has spent £600,000 defending the action.
Lawyers for the group will now lodge an application at the high court to have Irving's libel action struck out on the grounds that the facts had already been decided in the Lipstadt case.
Penguin, Lipstadt's publisher, said yesterday it intended to pursue Irving for its legal costs, estimated at £2.5m. If Irving is bankrupted, his action against the Observer would automatically be stayed.
Guardian Newspapers Limited said last night that it intended to argue that any action by Irving against the Observer would be a waste of court time and resources, since the issues had already been ruled upon by Mr Justice Gray yesterday.
