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DEFAMATION

Six convicted over schoolgirl photo galleries

Six young men have been found guilty of aggravated defamation by a court in western Sweden after posting compromising picture galleries of local schoolgirls to the internet.

Published: 6 April 2010 12:40 CEST

Varberg District Court convicted the boys and young men, aged 16 to 20, after they were found guilty of having created four image galleries and films of more than 30 teen schoolgirls from the small town of Falkenberg, local newspaper Hallandsposten reports.

The galleries included the names of the girls and were captioned with comments of a sexual nature.

The material was all made available on the internet, with the image galleries appearing on video website YouTube for several hours.

The court gave the 20-year-old man a suspended sentence and ordered him to perform community service, while the remaining boys received sentences ranging from youth community service to juvenile care. A further 16-year-old boy was cleared of all charges.

Ruling that the case constituted a serious violation, the court also ordered all six to pay the girls 15,000 kronor ($2,000) each in damages, a figure that would have been set at a higher rate had the perpetrators been older and in possession of greater finances.

DEFAMATION

Malkovich and Le Monde go to battle in French court

John Malkovich took French daily Le Monde and two of its journalists to court Friday for defamation over a report alleging the US actor had a secret Swiss bank account.

Published: 2 July 2016 11:12 CEST
Malkovich and Le Monde go to battle in French court

Dangerous Liaisons star Malkovich is suing the paper over two articles about the tax evasion scheme run by British banking giant HSBC out of its Swiss affiliate.

Malkovich, 62, was among several celebrities listed by Le Monde among the “elite tax evaders” to have had a secret Swiss account between 2005 and 2007 — a claim Malkovich has rejected.

“Not only did John Malkovich not defraud tax authorities” he “never had an account with HSBC”, Julia Minkowski, one of his lawyers, told a Paris court.

The only Swiss account he ever had was a securities portfolio with a bank that was later bought by HSBC, Minkowski added.

The actor had declared that account to US tax authorities before closing it on November 30, 1999, a month before the creation of HSBC's Swiss private banking arm, she said.

Herve Temime, another of the actor's lawyers, said Le Monde's linking of the actor to the Swissleaks revelations was “shameful”, calling his client a “man of great integrity”.

Prosecutor Annabelle Philippe rapped the two journalists who authored the report, and who were absent from the proceedings, for not having the “decency to come and recognise the lack of professionalism of their investigation”.

Le Monde's lawyer Christophe Bigot, for his part, accused Malkovich of “creating a fuss” despite having had an account “in a discreet little bank in a country (that was) uncooperative” with other countries on tax matters.

The court will rule on the case in October.