Jean-Claude Arnault, the man at the centre of a sexual abuse and financial misconduct scandal that forced the postponement of this year’s Nobel prize in literature, has been convicted of rape. In a unanimous verdict, Stockholm district court sentenced Arnault – the husband of a member of the Swedish Academy, which awards the world’s most prestigious literary prize – to two years in prison, the minimum sentence.

The judge, Gudrun Antemar, said there was “sufficient evidence, consisting mainly of statements during the trial by the injured party and several witnesses”, to convict the defendant of one of the two counts of rape with which he had been charged. The verdict came at the start of Nobel prize week, shortly before the award for medicine was announced. Arnault’s lawyer, Björn Hurtig, earlier told local media his client would appeal if convicted. He has said his client strenuously denies all charges against him, describing them as a witch-hunt based on fundamentally flawed evidence.After a trial held behind closed doors, the public prosecutor, Christina Voigt, had called for the Frenchman to be sentenced to at least three years in jail. The maximum sentence for rape in Sweden is six years.Arnault, 72, an influential figure in Sweden’s cultural scene for many decades, faced charges of forcing a woman to engage in oral sex and intercourse in a Stockholm apartment on 5 October 2011, and of raping her again on 2 December in the same apartment while she was asleep.(theguardian)…[+]