Court Rejects Tallinn's Case Against Daily
Harju County Court today rejected a civil suit by the Tallinn City Government against the Äripäev business daily over corruption allegations it printed.
At the end of May, when the city first revealed plans for taking the daily to court, the head of Tallinn's public relations department, Ain Saarna, said that the corruption allegations damaged Tallinn as a legal entity, its leaders and officials, as well as all of its businesses and inhabitants.
Kristina Ots, a spokeswoman for the court, told uudised.err.ee today that the city had not sufficiently proved that the articles had infringed on Tallinn's rights.
At the end of May, Äripäev published excerpts from a criminal case concerning former Tallinn adviser Ivo Parbus and former city council member Elmar Sepp, saying that the bribery scheme, which landed the pair in jail, was controlled from the very top of Tallinn's power pyramid.
The court ruled that the city will have to cover Äripäev's legal expenses connected with the suit.