MOSCOW – A court in the former Soviet republic of Belarus has ruled against an Associated Press correspondent in a lawsuit by a dairy company that claimed an AP article damaged its reputation. AP said it stands by reporting and will seek to overturn the ruling on appeal.
The lawsuit refers to an April article about farmers using land contaminated by fallout from the Chornobyl nuclear disaster. The article said tests by a Belarusian state laboratory on a sample of milk from a dairy farm showed 10 times the accepted level of a radioactive isotope.
