MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

1982 Falklands paratrooper's High Court action. Judge rules on newspaper publishing war allegations

Echoes of allegations that British troops shot Argentine prisoners of war after they had surrendered in the 1982 Falklands Conflict have been heard in the British High Court, which has rejected a defamation action against a Spanish newspaper group, Unidad Editorial SA.

The action was brought by former paratrooper, Ken Lukowiak, famous for writing a book about his 1982 experiences entitled "A Soldier's Song". He became a high profile author who visited both the Falkland Islands in 1995 and Argentina in 1996, meeting some of the Argentine combatants he had fought against.

According to a London Times law report, his complaint arose from an article in a Spanish newspaper saying that an Argentine judge wished to summons British soldiers, including Lukowiak, for alleged war crimes and that Lukowiak had acknowledged having shot an Argentine soldier who had surrendered (it was reported that the Argentine was armed and was thought to be about to shoot).

The Spanish newspaper group did not allege that Lukowiak was actually guilty of a war crime but argued that they had a defence of qualified privilege on the basis that they were under a social or moral duty to publish the information and that their readers had a legitimate interest in receiving it.

Right and duty to impart information and ideas

Dismissing the action, the Judge, Mr Justice Eady, said it was important for the court to take account of the expansion of modern communications and the international dimension involved in multi-jurisdiction publications.

When considering whether a multi-national publication had a social or moral duty to publish information, the court was deciding whether there was a duty to communicate the information to the world at large and place it in the public domain generally. It was not appropriate to draw fine distinctions between duties required in one jurisdiction and not another. The issue should not be judged by an English court on the hypothetical basis that the publication was taking place only in England and Wales. It had to take into account the circumstances applying outside English jurisdiction. It was necessary to take account of the rapid growth in electronic communications and the consequences of now living, in effect "in a global village".

The media were now widely recognised as having the right, and indeed duty, to impart information and ideas, especially in matters of public interest.

Mr Justice Eady said that, judged by the standards and obligations of modern jo