A lawsuit filed by the head of the Argentine Federal Revenue Administration (AFIP in Spanish) against a journalist was denied for the second time, reported the newspaper La Nación. Ricardo Echegaray sued Luis Majul after the journalist published the book "Él y Ella" ("He and She"), in which he alleged the official harassed him when he ordered the AFIP to audit his production company, added the newspaper.
A judge and a prosecutor had already denied the lawsuit in September 2012, but the AFIP appealed the decision and the case went to the Federal Chamber, which upheld the previous decision on Thursday, Jan. 3, 2013, reported the website Perfil. "The AFIP filed a false accusation against the book Él y Ella and the case was dismissed (finally in a criminal proceeding) the first time [...] The judge and the Chamber ended up not involving themselves in the case since there was nothing to warrant it," the journalist told the website Perfil.
This is not the only lawsuit the AFIP official has filed against reporters. Last December, Echegaray sued journalists Luis Majul and Matías Longoni each for almost $275,000 in damages. The case was denounced by several journalistic organizations.
Note from the editor: This story was originally published by the Knight Center’s blog Journalism in the Americas, the predecessor of LatAm Journalism Review.
