Verdict possible in Hamburg Holocaust denial trial

As the trial of notorious 95-year-old Holocaust denier Ursula Haverbeck draws to a close in the northern German port city of Hamburg, a verdict could be handed down on Wednesday.

Haverbeck, who is popular among right-wing extremists, was sentenced to 10 months in prison without probation by the city's district court in 2015. She lodged an appeal, but the trial did not take place until nine years later. She is accused of two counts of incitement to hatred.

According to the indictment, Haverbeck told journalists on April 21, 2015, on the fringes of the trial of former SS member Oskar Gröning, that Auschwitz was not an extermination camp, but rather a labour camp.

In a television interview with the regional public broadcaster NDR she also denied that there had been a mass extermination of people in Auschwitz.

Criminal courts have repeatedly had to deal with Haverbeck's statements over a period of two decades. She was first convicted in 2004 and received a fine.

Most recently, sentences were handed down without probation. Haverbeck has already served more than two years in prison for Holocaust denial.

Historians estimate the Nazis murdered at least 1.1 million people in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp alone.