Media campaign against condemnation of former 'Diario 16' director, Jose Luis Guttierez, denounced
Morocco-Spain, Politics, 1/24/2005

Chairman of the civil chamber at the Spanish supreme court, Roman Garcia Varela, denounced, on Friday, the media campaign against his decision confirming condemnation in 1999 of former "Diario 16" director, Jose Luis Guttierez, for harming the honor of the Late King Hassan II.

Former director of Diaro 16 and journalist Rosa Maria Lopez were condemned for a story dating back to 1995 headlined "an enterprise of the royal family involved in drug trafficking."

The civil chamber threw on June 24, 2004, the appeal after two successive verdicts in the case, the first in 1997 and the second in 1999. In a communique released on Friday, The Spanish justice stressed the Supreme Court sentence confirms earlier judgements in the first and appellate courts. Chairman of the civil chamber also defended justice Clemente Auger, writer of the decision, who has been target of the critiques of the right wing press, among other El Mundo and ABC.

The communique underscores the sentence is "not a personal work of the judge," but that of the civil chamber of the Supreme Court as a whole.

On the condemnation of Guttierez, the communique said the constitutional council estimates a newspaper and its director civil responsibility is always assumed and none can declare to have nothing to do with the information content and with the opinion expressed.

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