Judge Hears Opening Arguments in Granath v Wright Defamation Case
The defamation case Granath v Wright began in Norway on Tuesday whereby a social media influencer, Magnus Granath, is attempting to prove disparaging comments made via platforms such as Twitter against Bitcoin co-creator Dr. Craig Wright were lawful despite the mean nature.
The attacks ceased (and the tweets were deleted) once Dr. Wright threatened legal action in the United Kingdom. Wright is autistic and he alleged that at least some of the tweets were bullying in that they mocked his disability.
Vicious hashtags were even allegedly created by Mr. Magnus aimed at, not only Wright, but other key players in the crypto space.
Norway law does not see defamation in the same light as much of the rest of the civilized world, an advantage Magnus has as a Norwegian citizen.
Part of Magnus's assertion is that Wright was a scammer who had nothing to do with the creation of Bitcoin. The judge hearing this matter noted that Wright's claim to be Bitcoin's founder Satoshi Nakamoto, already determined by a Miami jury late last year, will not be redetermined over the next two weeks.
“A judgment in this case will not establish beyond a reasonable doubt if Dr. Wright is Satoshi. Whether Dr. Wright is or is not Satoshi will support the case, however,” said the Judge in her opening remarks.
According to CoinGeek.com's Jordan Atkins, Granath’s team had the mic for the duration of the day as they delivered their opening arguments, essentially encapsulating the case they would be relying upon throughout trial.
Granath's lawyers argued that Wright only created the Satoshi Nakamoto identity in order to escape Australian tax law. The aforementioned Miami jury seemed to find otherwise however.
Atkins delve deeper into these claims:
There is of course much more to the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) story—Dr. Wright gave sworn testimony in Kleiman v Wright that he was the victim of relentless pursuit by the ATO since he created Bitcoin, either because they didn’t understand it or were deeply hostile to the idea of digital money. This is backed up by the fact that the day after Dr. Wright was involuntarily revealed as Satoshi by WIRED and Gizmodo, the ATO raided his home in Australia—a curious move if their interest in Dr. Wright was simply due to a bad tax return.
Wright, who is an advocate of the BSV Blockchain, had previously served as an auditor for online casino companies.
- Jagajeet Chiba, Gambling911.com
