15 from the first series and one from the second series- was that they all made reference to the Belgian newspapers, whereas the articles not challenged in court did not. These articles were “completely separate investigative reporting in Costa Rica,” and hence reproduced nothing of what was being reported in Belgium. Mr. Herrera Ulloa’s articles appeared in the midst of a national dialogue on Costa Rica’s foreign service, brought on by a number of scandals involving other Costa Rican honorary diplomats. The situation was so disturbing that even the Ministry of Foreign Affairs organized a special fact-finding group to look into what was happening in the foreign service. As a result of that investigation, a number of honorary diplomats had their appointments revoked. As a consequence of the articles he published, Mr. Herrera Ulloa was named in two criminal complaints and had to “suffer” eight years of proceedings in the Costa Rican courts. He had to endure an inquisitorial proceeding in which the judges acquitted him on the grounds that his reporting was truthful and he had acted responsibly and diligently. But Mr. Przedborski appealed this judgment with the Third Chamber of the Supreme Court of Costa Rica, which vacated the acquittal and ordered that the case be retried by a new bench. In that second trial, which lasted a month and a half, Mr. Herrera Ulloa was subjected to “16 hours of questioning” by the judges and was found guilty on the grounds that he had acted with malicious intent. Mr. Herrera Ulloa appealed his conviction, but the appeal was denied by the Third Chamber of the Costa Rican Supreme Court. The justices who reviewed the appeal of the conviction were the very same justices who had nullified the verdict of acquittal, and had thus already formed an opinion on the case. They upheld the conviction and Mr. Herrera Ulloa’s name was entered into the Judiciary’s Record of Convicted Felons, available to local governments, the police, rural constabularies and gendarmerie, the General Bureau of Migration, etc. While the listing of his name in the Judiciary’s Record of Convicted Felons was widely reported and publicized, not so his “delisting.” The criminal proceedings and the listing of his name in the Judiciary’s Record of Convicted Felons caused the witness grievous harm professionally and left him with an unrelenting sense of insecurity and dread about the consequences and results that the process as a whole would have for himself personally, his career and his family. All this took a “tremendous, terrible, devastating” toll on his practice of journalism, not just the conviction but the entire process itself that depicted and treated him as a criminal. For a journalist “the trial itself is a punishment; it is a public discrediting of one’s adherence” to professional standards. Since his conviction, he has been profoundly disgraced, so much so that every time he does an interview with a public figure who is associated with any kind of controversy, he always hears the refrain, “Oh, you’re the convicted journalist.” He often hears warnings like “Careful, you could wind up in court again.” For Mauricio Herrera Ulloa, all this is like walking around with a brand on his forehead reading ‘convicted or libelous journalist’.” Career-wise, the criminal proceedings have forced Mr. Herrera Ulloa to turn down job offers outside Costa Rica and to interrupt his studies. He has also been forced to temporarily stop working at “La Nación”.