Resumen de France: : Recognition of the good faith of a journalist who wrongly presented a man as a terrorist
An interesting judgment delivered on 17 October 2014 by the press chamber of the Regional Court in Paris is the outcome of a case involving proof of the good faith of a television journalist being prosecuted for defamation. In the case at issue, an Algerian man had a summons issued against the directors of the publication of a television channel and its Internet site, and the journalist who wrote a paper, which was broadcast on the main evening news on television on the expulsion of five Islamists ordered by the Minister for the Interior. The photograph of the plaintiff had been shown on the screen, with a voice-over commentary stating that he had be found guilty in 1997 for the attacks committed in Marrakech in 1994 during which a number of Spanish tourists were killed, and that he maintained �regular contact� with people involved in terrorist activities (�former jihadists who had been through training at camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan�). The court found that this caused prejudice to the man�s honour and to the consideration due to him, as it was specifically stated that he had been found guilty of committing terrorist attacks, which proved to be false, and of maintaining close links with terrorists. The defamatory nature of the utterances in the case was therefore proven.
