A Slovenian court gave a three-month suspended jail sentence to the leader of the Slovenian Democratic Party (SDP), Janez Jansa, on November 23 for insulting two journalists, STA news agency reported.

The SDS won the general elections in June and is the largest party in the Slovenian parliament. However, it remained in opposition as Jansa failed to form a government.

As well as the suspended sentence, Jansa must also must pay the costs of the legal proceedings stemming from the incident back in 2016 in which he called the journalists prostitutes, the court in Celje ruled.

Jansa has claimed that he did not use the offensive word with a sexual meaning, but was referring to the journalists’ work.

According to a previous report from Reporters without Borders, the two insulted women were journalists with state-owned RTV Slovenia. Jansa, a former prime minister of Slovenia, claimed on Twitter that the journalists, Mojca Pasek Setting and Eugenija Carl, “prostitute themselves” on their Facebook page for €30 and €35 respectively.

“The [Facebook] page of the public house is offering cheap services by washed up prostitutes Evgenia C and Mojca PS. One for 30 euros, the other for 35. #PimpMilan,” Jansa’s tweet said. 

He claimed in his defence that he had written the tweet in response to a report by Carl that contained “despicable lies” about members of his party, Total Slovenia News reported. The politician refused to apologise for his comment. 

Jansa previously spent six months in prison after being convicted of receiving bribes in connection with a deal with Finnish defence company Patria. The case concerned a tender process launched by Slovenian defence ministry to buy 135 modular armoured vehicles in 2005 — the year after Jansa came to power — and in December 2006 Finnish majority state owned contractor Patria signed a deal worth €278mn with the Slovenian government. Jansa received a two-year sentence in the case, which was later overturned as the constitutional court ruled that his conviction was based on insufficient evidence.