SHARE
COPY LINK

COURT

Italy convicts Captain Corelli’s war criminal

An Italian court on Friday handed a life sentence in absentia to a former German army corporal for the wartime massacre of 117 Italian officers on the Greek island of Cephalonia that inspired a well-known novel.

Italy convicts Captain Corelli's war criminal
117 Italian officers were killed in a wartime massacre on the Greek island of Cephalonia. Photo: Martin Belam/Flickr.

Ninety-year-old Alfred Stork, who lives in Germany, was convicted by the military court for his role in the execution on September 24th, 1943 after the officers surrendered to German troops.

Stork had confessed to his role but military prosecutor Marco De Paolis said "he did not have the courage to maintain his admission of guilt and stayed comfortably in his home in Germany".

But De Paolis said that witness testimony had proved beyond reasonable doubt that Stork was a participant in the mass killing. Several relatives of the victims were plaintiffs in the case.

Stork was interviewed by German magistrates in 2005 and admitted he was in an execution squad that killed 73 of the officers but that evidence could not be used in court.

De Paolis said that the case had been an uphill battle because fellow German officers who are still alive would not incriminate Stork.

"There is a disgusting code of silence," he said.

The story of the massacre became the basis for the 1994 bestseller Captain Corelli's Mandolin by British writer Louis de Bernieres which revolved around Italian army captain Antonio Corelli.

The award-winning novel was later turned into a film starring Nicolas Cage and Penelope Cruz.

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

COURT

French court orders Twitter to reveal anti-hate speech efforts

A French court has ordered Twitter to give activists full access to all its documents relating to efforts to combat racism, sexism and other forms of hate speech on the social network.

French court orders Twitter to reveal anti-hate speech efforts
Photo: Alastair Pike | AFP

Six anti-discrimination groups had taken Twitter to court in France last year, accusing the US social media giant of “long-term and persistent” failures in blocking hateful comments from the site.

The Paris court ordered Twitter to grant the campaign groups full access to all documents relating to the company’s efforts to combat hate speech since May 2020. The ruling applies to Twitter’s global operation, not just France.

Twitter must hand over “all administrative, contractual, technical or commercial documents” detailing the resources it has assigned to fighting homophobic, racist and sexist discourse on the site, as well as “condoning crimes against humanity”.

The San Francisco-based company was given two months to comply with the ruling, which also said it must reveal how many moderators it employs in France to examine posts flagged as hateful, and data on the posts they process.

The ruling was welcomed by the Union of French Jewish Students (UEJF), one of the groups that had taken the social media giant to court.

“Twitter will finally have to take responsibility, stop equivocating and put ethics before profit and international expansion,” the UEJF said in a statement on its website.

Twitter’s hateful conduct policy bans users from promoting violence, or threatening or attacking people based on their race, religion, gender identity or disability, among other forms of discrimination.

Like other social media businesses it allows users to report posts they believe are hateful, and employs moderators to vet the content.

But anti-discrimination groups have long complained that holes in the policy allow hateful comments to stay online in many cases.

French prosecutors on Tuesday said they have opened an investigation into a wave of racist comments posted on Twitter aimed at members of the country’s national football team.

The comments, notably targeting Paris Saint-Germain star Kylian Mbappe, were posted after France was eliminated from the Euro 2020 tournament last week.

France has also been having a wider public debate over how to balance the right to free speech with preventing hate speech, in the wake of the controversial case of a teenager known as Mila.

The 18-year-old sparked a furore last year when her videos, criticising Islam in vulgar terms, went viral on social media.

Thirteen people are on trial accused of subjecting her to such vicious harassment that she was forced to leave school and was placed under police protection.

While President Emmanuel Macron is among those who have defended her right to blaspheme, left-wing critics say her original remarks amounted to hate speech against Muslims.

SHOW COMMENTS