BRATISLAVA, November 10, (WEBNOVINY) – Former Prime Minister and opposition SMER-SD chairman lost a lawsuit with the publisher of the Plus 7 Dni weekly at the Regional Court in Bratislava. The lawsuit dealt with an article called ‘On the Throat of Imperialists?’. “The decision was delivered to the publisher’s attorney today,” said Roland Kyska, deputy of the Plus 7 Dni editor-in-chief Milos Luknar for SITA news agency. According to his information, the Regional Court in Bratislava confirmed the decision of the Bratislava 5 District Court from March 25, 2009, which rejected Fico’s lawsuit on the protection of his personality. Fico demanded the publishing of an apology and paying one million Slovak crowns (EUR 33,000) as both financial compensation and a compensation for non-pecuniary damage.
According to Kyska, Fico sued Plus 7 Dni for an article in which the editor-in-chief Milos Luknar expressed a few ironizing conclusions regarding the information on Robert Fico meeting Muammar Gaddafi. According to it, Fico met Gaddafi personally during his visit of the Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahirya and had an approximately five-minute one-on-one meeting between them two. He did not want to inform the media on the subject they spoke about.
Kyska remarked that the contents of this discussion was not published in the official report from the visit, only the media published Fico’s statement where, upon insisting of the reporter, he said that they talked about a fight against world imperialism with Gaddafi. In the lawsuit, Fico claimed that he did not make the statement in front of a television camera. He demanded an apology and one million Slovak crowns for this untrue information. A legal remedy against the decision of the Regional Court is not possible any more.
SITA
