No punishment for former Iceland PM despite conviction

Iceland’s former Prime Minister Geir Haarde has today been convicted of one charge related to the nation’s banking crisis, but cleared of four others.

It relates to negligence over the economic meltdown there in 2008.

The special court found that Haarde failed to hold dedicated Cabinet meetings ahead of the crisis.

The special court trying him said he will not face punishment, and the state will pay his expenses in defending the case.

Mr Haarde, who led the government from 2006 to 2009, was the first government leader anywhere to face criminal prosecution because of the global banking crisis.

The 15 members of the Landsdomur, a special court founded in 1905 to deal with criminal charges against Icelandic government ministers, returned a 500-page verdict, but only a brief summary was announced in public.