"No smoke without fire," typed some random nobody in the comments section of an online news story.

I had recently returned from a three month expedition in Japan, interviewing over 80 people connected to the software industry. I'd spoken with corporate founders, millionaires, visionaries, preservationists, even the creator of Sonic the Hedgehog. An eclectic list of significant men and women around Japan.

Through this research I also documented the yakuza (Japan's organised crime mafia), the unethical sweatshop conditions of certain large companies, and I'd called out fraudulent activity among certain con-artists masquerading as interpreters.

It had been a long and difficult quest, but I had uncovered and brought to attention a dark underbelly that few Westerners even knew about.

Now I was being sued for libel by a family of criminals who were on international flight watch lists.

I reread the words of the anonymous commenter. The sentence "no smoke without fire" implying that being sued for libel meant being guilty of libel before trial had even commenced.

The European courts would methodically go through their procedures, but until they meted out justice the public would speculate as to who was right. I had no choice but to collect evidence and go to war (legally speaking).

When you make a moral stand against evil, and have to go up against that evil, there may be the thought that you should have looked the other way. Turned a blind eye. Let evil run its course. Discarded honour. All just for an easier life.

But I am not that man, and truth and justice must always prevail.

The court case lasted four years and, at the end, I won. I was not simply exonerated; the losers were shown to have made false claims, lied to the judges, were the sole wrongdoers, and ultimately were fined by the courts.

Sometimes speaking truth and making the right moral choice means walking a path of hellish fire. I cannot advocate this path to everyone, each must make their own choice, but I could never live any other way.