Man at center of Nobel scandal sentenced for rape

French-Swedish photographer and artistic director Jean-Claude Arnault was sentenced to two years in prison for raping a woman in 2011. Arnault's connections to the Swedish Academy, the body that funds the Nobel Prize for Literature, has sent the organization reeling and led to the first cancellation of the literature prize in over 60 years.

In November 2017, Arnault was accused of assaulting at least 18 women, including a claim backed by three witnesses that he groped Sweden's Crown Princess Victoria at an Academy event in 2006. He was charged with two counts of rape, after several charges had to be dropped due to insufficient evidence or the statute of limitations having lapsed.

Arnault, 72, ran the Forum – Contemporary Scene of Culture center in Stockholm, an arts and performance venue funded by the Swedish Academy.

Married to Swedish Academy member

He is also married to Academy member Katarina Frostenson, who has been accused of both corruption and not informing the academy of conflicts of interest over subsidies handed out by Arnault's arts venue.

There are also suspicions that Arnault has leaked the winner of the Literature Prize to the media several times.

As a result, the Academy announced that it will not hand out its literature award until 2019, saying that it needs to regain public trust in its processes. This is the first time the prize has been canceled in six decades. Previously, the Academy has declined to award a writer in times of conflict or when they believed none of the nominees were worthy.

es/ng (dpa, AFP)