Chapter 1 – Friday, December 20

Michael Blomkvist, a Sweden journalist of the magazine Millennium, who devoted much of his life exposing corruption in the banking and business word, was sentenced to 90 days in prison and to pay 150.000 kronor in damages for aggravated libel of industrialist Wennerstrom. Blomkvist claimed that Wennerstrom had used state funds intended for industrial investment in Poland for arms deals. However, Blomkvist couldn’t back up their assertions and Wennerstrom sued him. The court ruled that Blomkvist had libelled and defamed the financier and so he had to pay. Michael just could think about all the consequences: he would have to stay 3 months in prison; he also would have to pay the sum of 150.000 kronor, so probably he would have to sell his apartment, and there were the court costs and his own lawyer’s fee. But the expenses were nothing beside the fact that professionally he had received a real smack in the nose. It would take a long time to repair the damages.