Jean-Claude Arnault does not make the weapons. The French 72-year-old, at the centre of a sex scandal that had led to the postponement of the award of the Nobel prize for literature 2018, has appealed to the Swedish supreme Court of his conviction for rape, announced on Thursday the highest court in the land.

influential Figure in the circles of culture in Sweden, the artistic director had been convicted on appeal, in early December, date rape on two occasions of a woman and sentenced to two years and six months in prison. It “has asked the supreme Court to reject entirely” the judgment of the court of appeal, was stated by the highest court in a press release. It has not made any public declaration.

” READ ALSO: Sweden: the beginning of the appeal trial of Jean-Claude Arnault

The supreme Court has given Jean-Claude Arnault, who had been convicted in first instance at the beginning of October until the 28th of January to provide new arguments in support of its application. The supreme Court only supports the business, which might create a legal precedent, or in cases where there are exceptional reasons to review a decision of justice.

The scandal broke in November 2017 and has shaken the Swedish Academy

The scandal, which has shaken the Swedish Academy, erupted in November 2017, a month after the revelations about rape and sexual assault being charged to the producer of american cinema Harvey Weinstein. Jean-Claude Arnault, married to Katarina Frostenson, member of the Swedish Academy, had close ties with this institution, which is awarded since 1901 the Nobel prize for literature.

He was the artistic director of Forum, a very select club that he had created in 1989 and bringing together editors, writers, playwrights, or musicians in sight, and many young women. He received generous grants of the Swedish Academy, and boasted of being the “19th member” of the Academy. According to witnesses, it blew the name of the future winners of the Nobel to his friends.

eighteen women, including the complainant, had testified in November 2017 in the daily newspaper Dagens Nyheter , accusing the influential artistic director of rapes, sexual assaults and harassment.

Several members of the Academy, deeply divided on how to deal with this crisis, had left in the wake of the scandal. Décrédibilisée, deprived of the necessary quorum to function after the departure of several wise men, the institution had postponed for one year the announcement of the Nobel 2018, for the first time since 70 years.