A court in Stockholm today sentenced a French man who was the focus of a sex scandal that rocked the Nobel Prize-winning literature body to two years in prison for rape.

The Stockholm District Court also fined Jean-Claude Arnault to pay 115,000 crowns ($ 12,900) to the plaintiff for damages.

Arno was convicted in a court ruling unanimously in one of two counts of rape. The two women were in the same apartment, and signed in a Stockholm apartment in late 2011. Arno denied the charges.

"The court conducted a thorough assessment of the evidence, and the court's conclusion is that the evidence is sufficient to convict the defendant in one of the two crimes to which the prosecutor charged him," Judge Judron Antimar said in a statement.

"The court considers her (the plaintiff's) story to be genuine and credible," Antimar told reporters.

She added that six people supported the plaintiff's account, two of whom were her doctor and therapist.

A two-year prison sentence is the minimum sentence. Prosecutors, Christina Voigt, requested a three-year prison term for Arnault.

Voigt told Swedish radio that the conviction on one of the charges was linked to the fact that the first incident was known to more witnesses and was blocked by a newspaper editorial.

Three other jurors heard the case, along with Antimar.

The court ruled that Arnault should remain in custody.

"One thing is certain, that we will resume," Arno's defense lawyer Bjorn Hertig told Swedish radio.

The trial took place behind closed doors. The court also ruled that the identity of the woman was continuously denied.

Arno is married to a member of the academy, Katarina Frostenson.

The defense lawyer for the plaintiff, Elizabeth Massey Fritz, said that the conviction was a "great relief" for her client, adding that "today she believes in justice."

"No victim of rape should remain silent," she told the daily Xperse. "You should not feel guilty or ashamed."

According to reports published in the newspaper "Dagens Niter" Swedish, revealed in November, the allegations of misconduct raised by 18 women against Arnault.

At the same time, the Academy announced in May that it would not award the Nobel Prize for Literature this year, citing the need for time to restore people's trust.

The Nobel Prize for Literature is one of the awards awarded by Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite.