Frenchman found guilty on appeal

A Frenchman at the centre of a scandal that led to the postponement of this year's Nobel Literature Prize was yesterday found guilty on appeal of two counts of rape and jailed for two-and-a-half years.

Once an influential figure in Stockholm's cultural scene, 72-year-old Jean-Claude Arnault was convicted by a Stockholm appeals court of raping a young woman in October 2011 and again in December the same year.

He had pleaded innocent to the charges, insisting the sex was consensual.

A Stockholm district court had in October found him guilty of the first count of rape but acquitted him of the second, and had sentenced him to two years behind bars.