Tyrmand sues Polish daily over claims he was 'Trump's man'

The hearing has been launched in a Warsaw court.

In an article for Gazeta Wyborcza, published in May 2016, Tomasz Piątek “wrote a piece saying that I was Trump’s man suggesting that I was on Trump’s payroll, and connecting that payroll with (Russian President Vladimir) Putin and (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu, and trying to destabilise democracy,” Tyrmand said, adding that at the time that the story went to print he was a supporter of then-US presidential hopeful Ted Cruz.

“There were about a dozen lies, clearly defamatory, easily verified, and I decided that I just wasn’t going to let it slide,” Tyrmand told Poland’s PAP news agency, adding that there was a difference between freedom of speech and defamation.

“I’m suing … for a public apology, a retraction, I want the piece to stay up with the twelve lies highlighted,” he said.

The piece by Piątek followed an article by Tyrmand on breitbart.com in which he said that Polish anti-government protest movement Committee for the Defence of Democracy was funded by US billionaire George Soros’ Open Society Foundation, which Tyrmand said was a global network of think-tanks including Poland’s Stefan Batory Foundation and the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights.

“As you can see, Tyrmand’s war against the Committee for the Defence of Democracy is part of the right's global war against democracy,” Piątek said. (vb/pk)

Source: PAP, dziennik.pl