Frenchman at center of Nobel scandal sentenced for rape

STOCKHOLM - A Swedish court had sentenced the Frenchman, known in Swedish media as "the cultural profile", to two years in prison for raping a woman in 2011.

The case of Jean-Claude Arnault sent shock waves through the cultural establishment due to the accused person's connections to the Swedish Academy, the body that awards the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Multiple sexual assault allegations against 72-year-old French-Swedish photographer and artistic director, who is married to an Academy member, sent the illustrious institution into a crisis that eventually led to the first cancellation of the literature prize in nearly 70 years.

"The court's responsibility in a criminal case is to decide whether the prosecutor has proven the charges beyond a reasonable doubt," presiding judge Gudrun Antemar said in a statement on Friday.

"The evidence in this case has mainly consisted of statements made during the trial by the injured party and several witnesses. The court has made a thorough evaluation of the evidence and the court's conclusion is that the evidence is enough to find the defendant guilty of one of the events for which the prosecutor has brought charges."

Sexual assault accusations against Arnault surfaced in November last year when a Swedish newspaper published the testimonies of 18 women claiming the man had sexually assaulted them.

Those allegations, most of them anonymous, came at the height of the #metoo campaign, which was triggered by sexual abuse accusations against Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein.

Friday's verdict followed a closed-doors trial in which a woman whose identity has not been disclosed claimed that Arnault had raped her twice, in the autumn and winter of 2011.

However, the court only found the accused guilty of one charge. Arnault maintains his innocence and will appeal, his lawyer said after the Stockholm District Court handed down the sentence.

Arnault had been held in preventive custody since the end of his trial on Sept. 24 and will remain in jail until the formal start of his sentence, the court said.

Prosecutors had called for a minimum sentence of three years but several allegations were also dropped due to lack of evidence or because the statute of limitations had expired.

The Frenchman was a well-known figure in Swedish cultural circles. He ran a cultural club frequented by Swedish Academy members and it also received funding from the Academy. He bragged about being the Academy's "nineteenth member" and, according to an internal probe, leaked the names of Nobel literature laureates on several occasions.

After the findings of that probe were published and shared among Academy members, several of them resigned and there were open rows between members who have traded barbs via the media.

Six of the 18 members resigned or went on leave in the wake of the row, which also prompted the Swedish King to step in and approved amendments to the Swedish Academy's statutes, which dated back to 1786.