Lawsuits | The district court hears the police, who demand EUR 30,000 in compensation for suffering due to the HS case

Helsinki Today, the district court will hear a police officer whose honor and private life, according to the prosecutor, was violated by the article published by Helsingin Sanomat in 2021. The policeman demands 30,000 euros in damages from the defendants.

The district court ordered the hearing to be secret, i.e. the public or the media were not allowed in the hall.

HS told in his story among other things, that the police started a relationship with a young man who had been investigated for a sexual crime against him. According to the story, the young man had just turned 18 and the policeman was more than 20 years older than him.

The policeman has admitted the relationship and that he became aware that the young man was the person concerned in the case he was investigating. However, he believes that false things were told about him in HS’s story and he was made to look like an abuser.

“The article and the information presented as facts in it, including the headlines, are grossly derogatory, sensationalist and factually untrue,” the man’s claim for compensation says.

Prosecutor requires the reporter who wrote the story Paavo Teittinen and editor-in-chief To Antero Muka conditional imprisonment for aggravated defamation and aggravated dissemination of information infringing private life. The indictment also includes a man who, according to the prosecutor, was the anonymous source of the story.

To the editor-in-chief at the time of the story Kaius Nieme a fine is required for the chief editor violation.

The accused deny the charges. They are scheduled to be heard in court on Thursday.