The widow of the late educational publisher Albert Folens has settled her High Court action aimed at restraining the broadcast of an interview with her late husband as part of a documentary on Ireland's Nazis.
As part of the settlement, Ms Juliette Folens, who was not in court yesterday, has been given a right of reply in the documentary which is to be screened on RTÉ 1 tonight.
A statement on behalf of Ms Folens and her family is to be included in the programme, Hidden Ireland - Ireland's Nazis, which features Albert Folens. A native of Belgium, he came to Ireland after the second World War, was involved in educational publishing through the Folens company, and died four years ago at the age of 86 years.
In the reply to the programme, Ms Folens says she and her family "do not accept that Mr Albert Folens was a member of the Nazi party or ever a member or employed by the Gestapo or ever worked in their headquarters in Brussels".
It is understood that a short segment of an enactment of an alleged interrogation is also to be edited out of the documentary.
The settlement in the proceedings was reached after two hours of talks between legal teams for the Folens family, RTÉ, the film production company which made the documentary, Tile Films, and Senan Molony, the then Sunday Tribune journalist who conducted the interview with Mr Folens 20 years ago.
After the talks, James Connolly SC, for the Folens family, told Ms Justice Mary Laffoy yesterday afternoon that the action had been settled and the matter could be struck out with no order as to costs.
After the settlement had been announced in court, the Folens family issued a statement announcing the "settlement of the court action relating to Nazi war crime allegations" and stating the action had settled to the satisfaction of the parties.
"However," the statement continued, "Ms Folens and the Folens family wish to make it absolutely clear that Mr Folens was not a member of the Nazi Party, was never a member of or employed by the Gestapo and never worked in their headquarters in Brussels. Mr Folens never wore a uniform of the SS or German Sicherheitsdienst SD and his only military involvement was to train as a member of the Flemish Legion.
"Because of his membership of the nationalist Flemish Legion he was charged, along with 57,000 others, by the Belgian authorities. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison because of this membership and not because of any war crimes. Mr Folens was not guilty of any war crimes whatsoever.
"Mr Albert Folens was employed as a translator and translated newspaper articles from Flemish into German. He was never an interpreter, as has been suggested, and the Folens family find his portrayal as being engaged in interrogation and torture totally reprehensible. No allegations of interrogation or torture were ever made against Mr Folens and he was never accused of any war crimes."
Last week, Ms Folens was granted an interim injunction restraining RTÉ, Tile Films and Mr Molony from using material in the interview. The court also heard Ms Folens was seeking an order for discovery and inspection of the second and final part of the Hidden Ireland -Ireland's Nazis series, which features her husband. The disputed section of the interview ran for seven minutes.