NISKASAARI AND OTAVAMEDIA OY v. FINLAND JUDGMENT 3 12. On 21 September 2002 the complainant reported the matter to the police, asking them to investigate whether the first applicant was guilty of defamation when he called him a liar in his writings. By letter dated 16 October 2002 the complainant presented his claim for damages against the applicants. 13. On 15 and 17 November 2002 the applicant company and the first applicant submitted their replies to the police. On 5 December 2002 the first applicant was questioned by the police for the first time. 14. On 23 April 2004 the public prosecutor pressed charges in the Espoo District Court (käräjäoikeus, tingsrätten) against the first applicant for defamation. The complainant concurred with the charges brought by the public prosecutor. The compensation claim presented by him previously on 16 October 2002 was joined to the criminal charges. The applicants claimed that the Espoo District Court was not the appropriate court because the forum norms had changed in January 2004. 15. On 8 June 2005 the Espoo District Court found in an interlocutory decision that it was a competent court to decide the case. Even though the article in question had been written and the decision on its publication had been taken in Helsinki, the magazine had been printed and the consequences of the article had arisen in Espoo. As the internet articles concerned the same matter, the court was competent to examine them too. 16. On 26 January 2007 the Espoo District Court dismissed all charges against the first applicant and the compensation claim directed against the applicants. It found first of all that all the articles should be considered as one matter because they concerned the same topic, irrespective of whether they had been published on internet or in the magazine. Both the first applicant and the complainant had had grounds for their views and they had not said anything that was clearly untrue. The documentaries made by the complainant had provoked public discussion, but they had also provoked harsh criticism on account of the manner in which they were presented. Therefore the threshold for acceptable criticism of the complainant and of his documentaries was higher than usual. As there had been insinuations in the documentaries that some of the expert opinions had been false, the first applicant was allowed to use similar wording vis-à-vis the complainant. 17. By letter dated 26 February 2007 the complainant appealed to the Helsinki Appeal Court (hovioikeus, hovrätten). The Appeal Court held oral hearings on 16 and 17 October and on 27 October 2008. 18. On 30 January 2009 the Appeal Court convicted the first applicant of defamation and sentenced him to 40 day-fines, totalling 240 euros (EUR). He was ordered to pay EUR 2,000 plus interest in damages to the complainant. The applicant company was ordered, together with the first applicant, to pay EUR 4,000 plus interest in damages to the complainant as well as his costs and expenses of EUR 25,500, plus interest, in total. The court found first of all that the Espoo District Court had been the competent