ATHENS – A Greek lawyer spreading fake news about COVID-19 vaccines and government health measures aimed at slowing the pandemic couldn’t face the court because he contracted the Coronavirus.

The trial of Nikos Antoniadis had to be postponed as he faces accusations of violating a new law prohibiting the spread of misinformation about the pandemic, which could see even journalists and publishers jailed for reporting the news.

His lawyers presented results showing he was infected but it didn’t keep him from going on the Internet while awaiting trial to proclaim it wasn’t COVID but a “simple flu,” and complaining that his case had become “the trial of the century,’ in Greece.

He was charged in November, 201 by the police’s cybercrime division after a complaint was filed containing evidence that allegedly showed him stating that there is no Coronavirus, that the intubation of patients is unnecessary and that the vaccines are dangerous, said the state-run Athens-Macedonia News Agency (AMNA.)

The New Democracy government is trying to stop conspiracy theories being spread on social media and the Internet but isn’t requiring vaccinations to be mandatory although anti-vaxxers continue to spread the virus even faster.