Husband of Swedish Academy member denies sexual assaults

THE FRENCH cultural impresario whose alleged sexual assaults led to the postponement of this year’s Nobel Prize in Literature denied all the charges against him on the first day of his trial yesterday.

Jean-claude Arnault, the husband of poet and Swedish Academy member Katarina Frostenson, is accused of raping a woman on two separate occasions. The 72-year-old allegedly forced the victim – who was in a state of “intense fear” – to have oral sex and intercourse in a Stockholm apartment on Oct 5, 2011. Mr Arnault, who faces up to six years in prison if found guilty, is also accused of raping the woman in the same apartment while she was asleep.

“My client has found it extremely traumatic to describe these two rapes once again, and of course there were many tears,” Elisabeth Massi Fritz, a lawyer for the accuser, told the Expressen newspaper.

Bjorn Hurtig, Mr Arnault’s lawyer, said the accusations were difficult to prove: “We are talking about something that happened seven years ago between two people in a closed room.”

The allegations against Mr Arnault, an influential figure in Sweden’s cultural scene since the Eighties, sent shock waves through the capital when they were published last November.

Forum, the cellar venue he ran, has been described as the “living room of the Swedish Academy”, the 232-yearold literary institution that awards the Nobel Prize. When a majority of the Academy’s members voted not to expel Mr Arnault’s wife, three other members resigned in protest, sparking a crisis leading to the decision to postpone the prize.

“He is giving a rock-solid denial of committing the crimes which are claimed. I think the evidence is flimsy,” Mr Hurtig said. “The account falls apart in important, central aspects.”

Seven other women reported Arnault to the police in the wake of the original allegations, but only one case was judged both recent enough and strong enough to go to trial.