25 Apr 2005

Broadcast engineer convicted over picket scuffle in New Caledonia

1:38 pm on 25 April 2005

In New Caledonia, an engineer at the French public broadcaster RFO has been given a four month suspended prison sentence for his involvement in a scuffle during strike action.

The newspaper, Les Nouvelles Caledoniennes, reports a judicial panel at a court in the capital, Noumea, found Rock Haocas guilty of hitting a colleague on the fourth of November.

A scuffle broke out between picketing members of the USTKE union, and non-strikers who'd been holding an informal meeting a couple of hundred metres away.

The strikers had been irritated by being filmed by the RFO cameraman, Jose Solia.

Mr Solia was knocked out in the scuffle that followed.