Court orders woman to pay damages to Ingó Veðurguð

Iceland’s Court of Appeal has ruled that a woman’s online comment about Ingólfur Þórarinsson, known as Ingó Veðurguð, was defamatory and ordered her to pay him 350,000 Icelandic krónur in damages, mbl.is reported.

The court also ordered Pálína Helga Þórarinsdóttir, who is in her 50s, to pay 1.8 million krónur in legal costs. A district court had previously ruled that her comments were protected by freedom of expression and dismissed Ingólfur’s case.

The case concerned a comment Pálína posted in the Facebook comments section of Vísir. Replying to another user who had written “Keep going, my Ingó,” she wrote: “So, keep on raping and abusing young women?”

The Court of Appeal said the case involved a balance between Ingólfur’s right to privacy and Pálína’s right to freedom of expression. It accepted that her comment was made as part of a matter of public debate, but found that it amounted to a factual claim that Ingólfur had raped and abused young women, rather than a value judgment.

The court noted that Pálína had not tried to prove the claim was true and that Ingólfur had not been convicted of sexual offences or violence. It ruled that her comments were null and void.