Five Cretans sue the "Sunday Telegraph"

The editor of “The Sunday Telegraph” will have to face the Greek courts, accompanied by the famous British journalist Colin Freeman, a well-known war correspondent, on charges of defamation against five farmers from Heraklion and Rethymnon.

The farmers had been invited to a wedding in Zoniana but found their pictures printed in an extensive article published in “The Sunday Telegraph”, becoming the protagonists in a most libelous story about the area, entitled: “Drug-dealing shepherds set up Crete crime empire”.

The farmers turned against the newspaper and the journalist, believing that the publication in question, in which their faces are depicted, connects them to the Zoniana “mafia”, slandering their name. The press representatives facing litigation were charged with libel and the case will be heard at the Three-Member Misdemeanor Court of Athens.

In particular, the article was released online on June 28th, 2008. The five men, traditional Cretans, were invited to a wedding in Zoniana where the lens captured them, unknowingly om their part as they claim, sitting on the steps of the Zoniana Fallen Soldiers Memorial. The five farmers have no connection with the Zoniana region, but only attended the wedding to honour the newlyweds.