Alexis Kouros Update

As I noted earlier, Phil at Finland for Thought is being sued by Alexis Kouros. With Kouros remaining (as far as I know) silent on his side of the story, we only know what Phil has said.

Fortunately all his charges are completely bogus, here’s a few highlights...

- After Kouros had lied to Google, claiming to legally represent YLE, STT, and Iltasanomat which forced Google to shut down my ads, I called him a “big fat liar”. Alexis claims I was making fun of his weight by calling him “fat”. (I died laughing after reading this accusation)

- According to the papers sent to me by Borenius & Kemppinen, Alexis newspaper business is performing poorly...and yes, I am to blame.

- I used a tiny, low-res black&white photo of him without his permission.

- I called him a “conservative” in this blog post. (Yes, Alexis Kouros thinks being called “conservative” is a crime!)

- I am liable for edits people write in his Wikipedia profile.

- I am liable for each of comments written by you all (there are tens of thousands of them) on this blog. So I am legally responsible for all the negative things you’ve written about him. That makes this truly a landmark court case.

After Kouros did not show at the preliminary trial, Phil added the following:

I will once again keep radio silence about this trial in sincere hopes of making an agreement with Alexis. He, I, and our lawyers are due to meet again in a few days.

Well, Phil has provided additional information:

Radio silence off - Alexis Kouros has refused to my attorney and I to discuss and possibly come to an agreement like the judge had requested, and what I’ve been requesting for months. I assured him and his lawyer that I would keep any discussion confidential, but he simply refuses to see me face-to-face.

So this case is going to trial, I’ll let you all know when the date is set.

But Phil (and I) are not the only people talking about this. It's on Digg, and Jack Yan has blogged about it. I think you can predict how the blogosphere will react. Here is Yan:

American expat blogger Phil Schwarzmann, living in Finland, is being sued by Iranian expat and newspaper publisher Alexis Kouros over trivialities, it seems.

I am getting this strictly from Schwarzmann’s side so I have not read Mr Kouros’s statement of claim.

After quoting the "fat" and "conservative" accusations, Yan states:

If none of these are true, then Schwarzmann opens himself up to libel, so I would imagine that he would not risk it.

And if they are true, then Kouros needs to grow a couple.

Yan, by the way, got the story from Igor Polyakov. And Lavonardo has talked about it also.

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