A Monaco resident already well known to the courts has been sentenced to four months in prison for publicly insulting His Serene Highness Prince Albert II…
As reported by Nice-Matin, 64-year-old Didier Garofalo was judged in absentia by the Monaco Criminal Court on Tuesday, November 11, after failing to appear and providing no legal representation. Garofalo, who has seven prior convictions in the Principality for offences including insults, defamation, and harassment of public officials, is believed to be in France and remains subject to an international arrest warrant issued in an earlier case.
The charges related to a series of six videos published in 2020 on a YouTube channel called “Jasper Mader,” in which Garofalo levelled serious accusations against the Sovereign. According to the court, he falsely alleged that Prince Albert II had misused funds from the Monaco Red Cross, interfered with the justice system, and failed to act on supposed large-scale financial wrongdoing. The videos prompted the Sovereign’s then-lawyers, Thierry Lacoste and Thomas Brezzo, to file a complaint for public offence against Prince Albert II.
A second man, Frédéric Chaumont, faced charges of complicity for providing technical support, but proceedings against him were dropped following his death in May 2025.
The court confirmed that Garofalo could not be questioned, as French authorities previously refused to enforce a Monaco request for judicial cooperation. The French investigating judge indeed declined to execute it on the grounds that the offence of insulting the Head of State is not prosecuted in France, and that the prosecution of such an offence had been deemed contrary to Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights—on freedom of expression—by the European Court of Human Rights. The extradition request corresponded, for four of the offences, to the prosecution of acts restricting freedom of expression, which French legislation either does not criminalise or does not punish with penalties that could justify extradition.
The prosecutor called the language used “beyond acceptable,” and the court ultimately imposed four months’ imprisonment and awarded the Prince €1 in symbolic damages.
