Insider appeal against FAO criminal libel conviction set for June 4

 
ROME -- The Rome Court of Appeal will consider June 4  the appeal that Italian Insider  chief editor John Phillips has launched against his conviction by the Rome Tribunal in 2019 on charges of criminally tarnishing the image of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and four senior executives of the UN agency.  
 A panel of judges will decide whether to overturn the unfair criminal libel conviction for articles in the Italian Insider and the sentence to pay 60,000 euros in civil damages and legal costs for Italian Insider's reporting on the organization.
 
 Italian Insider's reports on the UN agencies in Italy have continued despite repeated legal efforts by the FAO to silence us, as condemned by NGOs such as Reporters without Borders https://rsf.org/en/news/italy-un-agency-tries-silence-rome-based-editor
 
 You can read one of our latest reports on the ongoing shenanigans at the FAO here;  https://www.italianinsider.it/?q=node/10113
 
  In the past year heads have continued to roll at FAO as a result of our investigative reports including the dismissal of HR director Fernando Servan for sexual harassment and the departure of ADG Roberto Ridolfi after he was placed under investigation by the EU anti-fraud agency for allegedly using an assignment at FAO while still on the EU Commission payroll to drum up business for his sons at a development trade fair. 
 
 In November the Rome Tribunal dismissed a second case brought against Phillips by the FAO, accepting an investigating magistrate’s recommendation that there was no defamation of the UN agency in his articles. The judge ordered that a second allegation by the FAO of the newspaper being a ‘clandestine publication’ also be shelved since it was baseless adding that even had it been true it would have not been the FAO's business.
 
 Judge Paolo Scotto di Luzio ruled in November that the articles published by the Insider about links between former DG José Graziano da Silva and former Brazilian President Ignacio di Silva Lula were accurate and "certainly of public interest."
 
 Italian Insider is appealing to readers to contribute to its legal defense fund to help cover costs of the legal battle to prevent the newspaper, founded in 2009, being silenced. Readers may  contribute by clicking on the following link.