Greek sues over 'Turk' photo on Swedish yoghurt pot

A Greek man has sued a Swedish dairy for 50 million kronor (five million euros) for placing his picture on pots of Turkish-style yoghurt, public radio reported.

With long greying moustache and traditional red hat, the man's photo features on cartons of Turkish recipe yoghurt made by the Lindahl dairy, based in Jonkoping, in central Sweden.

A Greek friend living in Stockholm, Athanasios Varzanakos, alerted the man to the fact that his image was on the offending containers, SR radio said. It did not give the name of the man.

"I couldn't believe my eyes," Varzanakos said. "It was a shock to suddenly see someone I knew. He didn't like it, he was annoyed and asked how it was possible."

The Greek national pictured on the pots lodged a 40-page legal complaint saying that the dairy had used a false image of him because he lives in Greece and no links to Turkey.

Turkey and Greece have been divided by long-standing hostilities.

The dairy said there had been a misunderstanding and that it had bought the photograph in good faith from an image library.

"It came as a shock" when the company received the complaint, said chief executive Anders Lindahl. "We bought it from a photo agency so we assumed that everything was in order."