(Credit: The Guardian, screenshot)

Greek journalist Kostas Vaxevanis was acquitted for the second time in two years of invasion of privacy charges after he published a list of wealthy Greeks with “secret bank accounts” in a 2012 issue of his magazine Hot Doc.

Last year, Vaxevanis was acquitted of the charges, as iMediaEthics wrote at the time. He published a list of what the Guardian described as a list of “2,000 Greeks with Swiss accounts who are regarded as potential tax evaders.”

The list has been coined the Lagarde list because it was created by International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde.

But, according to the Guardian, Vaxevanis’s 2012 acquittal had been “overturned” and he was required to face the charges yet again. The Guardian reported:

“Vaxevanis had originally been acquitted last year but in an unprecedented step a public prosecutor overturned the verdict, claiming that it had been made in haste, and he was retried for the same crime.”

Vaxevanis has defended posting the list because it was in “the public interest” and journalism.