Defamatory tweeting earns SDS leader suspended sentence
Ljubljana, 17 December - Democrat (SDS) leader Janez Janša has successfully deflected many court challenges over the years, but a tweet he wrote in 2016 ended up with with him receiving a three-month suspended prison sentence on one-year probation in November, a rare guilty verdict for a senior member of the Slovenian political class.
Ljubljana
President of the opposition Democratic Party (SDS) Janez Janša.
Photo: Tamino Petelinšek/STA
File photo.
Janša, who has a long track record of attacking media, branded public broadcaster TV Slovenija journalists Mojca Pašek Šetinc and Eugenija Carl prostitutes and implied that RTV Slovenija was a brothel with Milan Kučan, the former Slovenian president, its pimp.
Janša, who had already had to pay EUR 6,000 to each of the journalists in damages suits filed against him by Pašek Šentinc and Carl, was offered settlement, but refused to apologise.
Instead he labelled the lawsuit absurd and defended his action by claiming that the tweet had been a reaction to Carl's report "containing a bunch of despicable lies about SDS members". He accused Pašek Šetinc of having insulted him with her reporting for more than 25 years.
The SDS head plans to appeal the ruling because of what he argued were many violations during the proceeding and the court's misjudgement of the tweet and the context in which it had been written. Pašek Šetinc and Carl welcomed the ruling as a message to Slovenian journalists that the judiciary would protect them.