The widow of the late educational publisher Albert Folens has secured a temporary High Court injunction preventing RTÉ from using an interview with her husband in a TV programme titled Ireland's Nazis, scheduled to be aired next week as part of the Hidden Ireland series.
The injunction was granted yesterday by Ms Justice Mary Laffoy on an ex parte basis (only one side represented) and was made returnable to today to give RTÉ an opportunity to respond.
The order restrains RTÉ, Tile Films Ltd and journalist Senan Moloney from using material in an interview that her husband gave to a journalist 20 years ago.
In her proceedings, Mrs Folens is also seeking an order for discovery and inspection of the second and final part of the Ireland's Nazis series, which features her husband.
The programme is due to be broadcast on RTÉ 1 next Tuesday night.
Yesterday, John Rogers SC, for Mrs Folens, said Mr Folens, a Belgian national, had in 1987 given an interview to journalist Senan Moloney, who was at the time working for the Sunday Tribune newspaper.
That interview, which is seven minutes long, was recorded on tape and parts of it were to be featured in next week's broadcast.
Mr Rogers said that a representative of the newspaper, Mr Moloney and Mr Folens had signed an agreement allowing Mr Folens to see any article before it was published and also giving him the right of reply.
His client was seeking the injunction restraining the defendants from using, broadcasting and publishing the subject matter of that interview, otherwise than in accordance with the terms of the agreement in 1987, counsel said.
Mrs Folens also wanted the court to make an order compelling the defendants to provide her with a copy of the said interview, and all notes and material relating to that interview.
Following the publication of newspaper articles about the programmes, there was a suggestion that during the second World War Mr Folens was a Nazi, and was wanted for war crimes, Mr Rogers said.
Such a suggestion was "completely wrong", "out of historical context" and "deeply wounding" to the Folens family.
Statement: Juliette Folens (widow of Albert Folens)
"There are a number of allegations which I would like to deal with and issues I would like to clarify. My husband Albert was a member of the Flemish Legion in Belgium, which he joined in 1941 to support the cause for an independent country for the Flemish people and to fight against Stalin and Communism.
"The Flemish Legion was sent to the Eastern Front under German Military Command but Albert became ill and returned to Belgium. He saw no military action whatsoever. Because of his fluency in French, German and his native Flemish, he was deployed in Brussels as a translator - not an interpreter - compiling in German a What It Says in the Papers of the Flemish newspapers.
"At the end of the war he was arrested by the Belgian authorities who sought evidence against him. No evidence was found of crimes against any person or of war crimes.
"Albert was, amongst 59,000 others, found guilty of collaboration and sentenced to 10 years' detention. With my parents, my brother and friends, I was present in court when he was sentenced. He was never sentenced to death, as has been alleged.
"My husband was never a member of the Gestapo and was never a member of the Nazi party. In fact, he absolutely refused to pledge an oath of allegiance to Hitler because he had already pledged an oath of allegiance to the King of Belgium on becoming a teacher.
"Two years into his sentence he escaped and we made our way to Ireland. We lived openly under our own names and our identities were well known to the Irish authorities. If Albert had been wanted for war crimes, it is unlikely that he or I would have retained our identities. His initial employment in Ireland was as a translator in Kanturk, Co Cork, and then later as a French teacher in Dublin. He became an Irish citizen in the 1950s.
"I met Albert in March 1942 and we married in April 1943 so I was with him during the crucial period in question. I can testify that, contrary to what is being alleged, my husband never committed any war crimes whatsoever, was never a member of the Nazi party, and never a member of the Gestapo."