A journalist from the Ilta-Sanomat late edition tabloid did not commit libel when writing that a named celebrity entrepreneur and a member of the motorcycle gang Hell’s Angels were suspects in the same criminal investigation.
On Tuesday the Helsinki Court of Appeal dismissed the claim that the journalist’s article would have subjected the entrepreneur to libel.
In the spring of 2006, Ilta-Sanomat wrote that the entrepreneur was a suspect in a large criminal case connected to the Hell’s Angels.
The Court of Appeal stated that the information in the article matched the police’s then knowledge of the case being investigated.
The entrepreneur was suspected of a serious offence and in the same preliminary investigation the crimes' connection with the motorcycle gang was also being looked into.
According to the Court of Appeal, reporting these facts in a newspaper article was justified.
The article did not claim that the entrepreneur would have had direct connections with members of the motorcycle gang, the court pointed out.
Previously, the Helsinki District Court had arrived at an analogous conclusion to that of the Court of Appeal.
The criminal affair that the article had dealt with was a large construction branch receipt-peddling case, in which the District Court pronounced its ruling just over a month ago.
One of the roughly one hundred defendants was a Hell’s Angels member.
Coincidently he was acquitted, whereas the entrepreneur was convicted of aggravated tax fraud. Ilta-Sanomat belongs to Sanoma News, the leading newspaper publisher in Finland, which also publishes Helsingin Sanomat.
