ROME-- David Petrie, chair of the Association of Foreign Lecturers in Italy (ALLSI), was due to receive on Thursday a ruling from the European Court of Human Rights on the dismissal of his action in a defamation case, which has been ongoing for the last 20 years. The case was born out of false accusations from Italian academics on comments from Petrie allegedly about the mafia controlling the peninsula. 

 The proceedings first began in 1997 when Petrie spoke at a hearing of the Employment and Social Affairs Committee of the European Parliament concerning the position of non-Italian foreign lecturers working in Italian universities. Giving evidence on the Italian state’s discrimination against foreign lecturers at the hearing, Petrie made the remarks, “now, how does this happen ? It happens because there is a system in Italy, and it’s difficult to translate, the word is ‘raccomandazioni’, it comes from the word ‘to recommend’.” 

 In 1998, at a public meeting organised by the University of Bologna, he was then accused by Bruno Civello, from the Italian Ministry of Education and Adriano Rossi, a former vice-Chancellor of the Oriental University of Naples, of calling Italy ‘a country run by the mafia’ during the 1997 hearing.

 Petrie called this "a despicable and wicked lie. Unable to defend themselves in any decent way they resorted to an ad hominem attack."

 On July 4 1998, Petrie brought damages in the Bologna district court against Civello and Rossi, arguing that their accusations had damaged his public reputation. A complex legal battle then ensued. A recording of Petrie’s original speech in the 1997 hearing, made by a journalist from the Guardian was denied admittance as evidence. When Petrie then requested the official European Parliament recording of the hearing, it had disappeared, the only tape being one that had been translated into French, and which had been wiped at crucial moments in Petrie’s speech.

 When Petrie threatened to sue the European Parliament for the loss of his defamation case, following a meeting with the then President, Nicole Fontaine,  the tape resurfaced, and in 2002 The District Court allowed his claims. The court then demanded that the Rossi and Civello jointly pay 19,500 euros in damages charges, in addition to 6,500 for legal fees. The two men appealed against the judgement to the Bologna Court of Appeal, which allowed the appeal, dismissing Petrie's action for defamation, and ordering him to pay 4,500 euros for the men's costs. 

 Relying on article eight, which concerns the right to respect for private and family life, Petrie argues that the court was wrong to dismiss his action for defamation, as it resulted in an unjustified interference into his right to respect for his private life, and his public reputation. The court will announce its decision on Thursday. 

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