- guardian.co.uk, Monday January 31 2000 16.36 GMT
Author Kevin MacDonald, professor of psychology at California State University, was giving evidence on Mr Irving's behalf during his damages action against American academic Deborah Lipstadt and Penguin Books over a claim that he is a "Holocaust denier".
Mr Irving, the 62-year-old author of Hitler's War, asked Prof MacDonald, who has written books on Judaism and anti-semitism: "Do you consider me to be an anti-semite?"
Prof MacDonald replied: "I do not consider you to be an anti-semite. I have had quite a few discussions with you and you almost never mentioned Jews - never in the general negative way."
Prof MacDonald also said he had never heard Mr Irving express any anti-semitic beliefs.
During the trial in London before Mr Justice Gray, who is hearing the lengthy case without a jury, Mr Irving has been accused by Richard Rampton QC, for Prof Lipstadt and Penguin Books, of making "grossly anti-semitic" statements.
Mr Irving has vehemently denied an allegation by the defendants that he has made statements "designed to feed the virulent anti-semitism" still alive and kicking throughout the world today.
Mr Irving is seeking damages over Prof Lipstadt's 1994 book, Denying The Holocaust: The Growing Assault On Truth And Memory which he says alleges he has distorted statistics and documents to serve his own ideological purposes and reach historically untenable conclusions.
Mr Irving says Prof Lipstadt's book has generated "waves of hatred" against him. The defendants have accused him of being "a liar and a falsifier of history".
Mr Irving rejects the claim that he is a Holocaust denier. He does question the number of Jewish dead and denies the systematic extermination of the Jews in concentration camps.
