KINGSTON, October 30  -- Jamaica's former Prime Minister P.J. Patterson on Thursday won millions in damages after the supreme court sided with him and handed down a guilty verdict to a media company for defamation.

Patterson who led the People's National Party to three consecutive terms -- from 1992 to 2006 -- sued Nationwide News Network (NNN) in 2010 for broadcasting a news item which his lawyers claimed was sensational and had set out to defame him.

In 2009, the NNN aired a story in which Patterson was reported to be on a private chartered aircraft from Cuba which was said to be the subject of a search. The story was carried as a breaking news.

The supreme court, in handing down the judgment, ordered NNN and its chief executive officer to pay Patterson 12.5 million Jamaican dollars (112,000 U.S. dollars) for damages.

The figure could reach 20 million Jamaican dollars (179,000 dollars) plus costs, but still far from the 180 million (1.6 million dollars) Patterson had asked for.

The court turned down NNN's defense of qualified privilege on the grounds of press freedom.

This is not Jamaica's first case where a politician has taken the press to court and won. In 2003, former minister of tourism, Anthony Abrahams, won a 16-year libel battle against the country's oldest newspaper the Gleaner.