Australia’s Minister of Defence, Peter Dutton, was awarded AU $35,000 Wednesday for being defamed in a tweet that called him a “rape apologist.”

The tweet which sparked the defamation lawsuit was published by refugee advocate Shane Bazzi in February. It read, “Peter Dutton is a rape apologist,” with a link to an article about Dutton using his photo as the header image. Bazzi deleted the tweet in April at the request of Dutton’s solicitors.

The court held that the tweet had to be read as a whole, including Dutton’s photograph and the article’s headline. To this end, the court found that “the ordinary reasonable reader of the Tweet would have readily understood the statement that Mr Dutton is a rape apologist to be a statement in respect of the rape of women.”

According to the court, the imputation in Bazzi’s tweet that Dutton excuses rape constitutes defamation. Bazzi did not successfully establish a defense. Therefore, the court found for Dutton and ordered that Bazzi pay Dutton $35,000 in damages.

Evidence heard in the trial established that Bazzi’s tweet had 1,221 impressions, including the parties to the dispute and their legal teams. Impressions refer to the number of Twitter users whose feeds the tweet appeared on. Impressions do not reflect the number of readers of the tweet, which the court noted will have been less than the number of impressions. 155 users of the 1,221 interacted with Bazzi’s tweet, primarily by liking and retweeting.

The lawsuit attracted attention for its freedom of speech implications. Although the tweet contained only six words and had a nominal readership, it was held to be defamation, warranting an order to pay damages.

Bazzi commented that he is “disappointed” with the outcome of the lawsuit and is considering his options.