Former first lady Dagmar Havlová awarded record compensation over false tabloid story

A Prague appeals court has upheld compensation totalling 2.5 million crowns for former Czech first lady Dagmar Havlová over a false tabloid article alleging she had an affair. The magazine Pestrý svět claimed that Havlová was spending time with a lover at a spa resort during the weekend when her husband, former President Václav Havel, died in December 2011. Both Havlová and the man identified in the article denied the allegations, which courts found entirely false and unverified. The legal dispute lasted 14 years. The compensation, awarded in two separate rulings, is unprecedented in Czech judicial history.