Saudi billionaire Khalid bin Mahfouz died in Jeddah last Saturday. The 60-year-old former owner of the Saudi National Commercial Bank and banker for the Royal family also owned a charity, the Muwafaq (blessed relief) Foundation that funded al-Qaeda and Hamas, to name but a few. He should be remembered not only because of his involvement with the shady Bank for Commerce and Credit International (BCCI) aka “banks for crooks and criminals” and the illegal purchase of the First American Bank in Washington, DC, in the early 1990s, but mostly because inadvertently he led Americans to better protect their free speech rights.
Using British libel laws that allow foreigners to sue other foreigners in British courts, a practice known as libel tourism, Mahfouz became a serial suer. The gay and drug addicted Saudi , sometimes together with his sons, sued more than 40 writers and publishers - mostly Americans - because he did not like their criticism. Singlehandedly, on behalf of his royal masters Mahfouz made libel tourism a multimillion-dollar industry for the British Bar, and London the “Libel Capital” of the world.
Many will miss him. In Riyadh, the billionaire will be missed by the ruling members of the royal family who once used his National Commercial Bank as their own piggy bank, and often used him and his family members as fronts for their business and to fund their favorite organizations and terrorist groups. Likewise, those shady characters who run the Saudi-funded Muslim World League, the International Islamic Relief Agency, and the Rabita Trust of Pakistan will miss him. Read more ...
The net has extended the global reach of published material, but writers are finding their right to free speech has been curtailed
By Rachel Ehrenfeld
Sitting at my desk on 23 January 2004, I was interrupted by an email from a law firm in London. It was a letter threatening to sue me for libel in a British court, for statements made in my book, Funding Evil: How Terrorism is Financed – and How to Stop It, about their client, Saudi billionaire Khalid bin Mahfouz.
The letter claimed Mahfouz denied allegations in my book that he "knowingly" funded al-Qaida and other Muslim terrorist organisations.
Mahfouz's lawyers demanded my public apology, retraction, removing my book from circulation, legal fees and a donation to a charity of Mahfouz's choice. This was followed by further correspondence and then legal papers were served.
As an American citizen, I refused to recognise the British court's jurisdiction over me. I did not believe that I had to defend myself in a country where I do not live, and where my book was not published or marketed. Besides the cost would have been prohibitive. Read more ...
Weak laws abroad threaten First Amendment freedoms here. Congress could step in to help.
THE PROBLEM has lightheartedly come to be known as libel tourism, but the damage inflicted on the First Amendment and academic freedom is serious.
Disgruntled subjects of articles or books produced and distributed almost exclusively in the United States file suit in foreign jurisdictions to get around the strong First Amendment protections afforded here to journalistic and academic works. In the United States, for example, a public figure or public official must prove that allegedly libelous material is false and that the author acted with actual malice in publishing the material. Britain, on the other hand, has become a favorite venue for unhappy subjects because the author must prove that the material is true. Plaintiffs win cases that would be thrown out by U.S. courts. Read more ...
A House committee held an important hearing Thursday morning on the issue of "libel tourism." That's the practice of bringing libel suits against American authors in other nations, particularly the United Kingdom, where First Amendment protections do not apply and where the burden of proof is placed on the defendant rather than on the plaintiff.
Saudi Arabian businessman Khalid bin Mahfouz has brought several such lawsuits, winning a default judgment against American researcher Rachel Ehrenfeld for her book Funding Evil: How Terrorism Is Financed and How to Stop It, and forcing a Cambridge University Press to destroy copies of the book Alms for Jihad.
Both works linked bin Mahfouz to financing terrorism.
U.S. Rep. Peter King (R-NY) submitted written testimony for the hearing, advocating legislation he has introduced to bar foreign libel judgments from being enforced in the U.S. without first meeting constitutional protections and established case law. King has been outspoken in fighting against any censorship caused by threats of radical Islamists.
"The danger is that foreign individuals are operating a scheme to intimidate authors and publishers from even exercising" the First Amendment right to free speech, said King, the ranking Republican on the House Committee on Homeland Security. It becomes an urgent matter because the subjects often deal with terrorism and national security.
"I receive regular classified briefings on dangerous plots to attack the United States, so I know just how grave these threats are. We cannot allow foreigners the ability to muzzle Americans for speaking the truth about these dangers," King said.
Thursday's hearing was supported by Society of Professional Journalists. Read more ...
Most Americans take their freedom for granted. Coming from the Middle East and working all over the world, I know better. Elsewhere, free speech and a free press are regarded as privileges, not a sacred right.
Take England for example: in January 2004 I was sued in London, by Saudi billionaire and terror-financier, Khalid bin Mahfouz, former banker to the Saudi royal family and owner of the largest bank in the Middle East. Mahfouz bristled at my book Funding Evil; How Terrorism is Financed - and How to Stop It which investigated heavily documented allegations of his terror financing.
Mahfouz sued me in England where libel law favors plaintiffs, and permits foreigners to sue other foreigners if allegedly defamatory words somehow reached British shores. The U.N. Human Rights Commission recently criticized Britain's libel laws for serving "to discourage critical media reporting on matters of serious public interest, adversely affecting the ability of scholars and journalists to publish their work, including through the phenomenon known as libel tourism." In my case, Mahfouz alleged that twenty-three copies of Funding Evil, published only in the U.S., were purchased in England via the Internet. The identity of those purchasers was never revealed. Read more ...
On Jan. 23, 2004, at 2:33 p.m., an e-mail popped up on my computer screen from the solicitors for Saudi billionaire Khalid bin Mahfouz threatening to sue me in London for libel. My first thought was, “He found the wrong victim.” I then called my lawyer to find out how best I could fight back.
I was determined to prevent the Brits from robbing me of my free speech rights in America. After all, these rights were the result of the successful American fight against British oppression three centuries ago.
Having been raised by parents who, as members of the Irgun, fought the British occupation for Israel’s independence, I grew up understanding the core value of freedom. Thus, the U.S. constitutional protection of freedom of expression had a major role in my decision to live here.
At the time Mahfouz threatened to sue me in London, he already received many media outlets’ and writers’ retractions or apologies — most not U.K.-based. His frenzied use of the High Court in London to silence the media began in earnest after the 9/11 attacks on America. Read more ...
There are many forms of terrorism, and violence is just one of them. The non-violent, incremental strategies used to achieve the Muslim Brotherhood’s goal to “sabotage the west from within” are more insidious and more likely to be successful than violence. Though non-violent radicalism takes many forms, one of the most dangerous forms is the effort to stifle free speech through the use of foreign defamation law suits.
A main case in point is that of Rachel Ehrenfeld. She is an Israeli-American counter-terrorism expert, and is internationally recognized. In 2003, she authored the book, Funding Evil: How Terrorism is Financed and How to Stop it. In it, she asserted that Khalid bin Mahfouz, a Saudi banker and billionaire helped finance Al Qaeda. To support her claim, she cited official government documents from France, Britain, and the United States.
Rachel’s book was written, published, and distributed in America, and was targeting an American audience. However, through the Internet, approximately 23 books were sold in the United Kingdom. This was sufficient for British courts to acknowledge jurisdiction when Mahfouz decided to sue Rachel for defamation in the British courts. Read more ...
When Rachel Ehrenfeld wrote "Funding Evil: How Terrorism Is Financed and How to Stop It," she assumed she would be protected by the First Amendment. She was in the United States. But a wealthy Saudi businessman she accused in the book of being a funder of terrorism, Khalid bin Mahfouz, sued in Britain, where the libel laws are heavily weighted against journalists, and won a sizable amount of money.
The lawsuit is a case of what legal experts are calling "libel tourism." Ms. Ehrenfeld is an American, and "Funding Evil" was never published in Britain. But at least 23 copies of the book were sold online, opening the door for the lawsuit. When Ms. Ehrenfeld decided not to defend the suit in Britain, Mr. bin Mahfouz won a default judgment and is now free to sue to collect in the United States.
The upshot is a First Amendment loophole. In the Internet age, almost every American book can be bought in Britain. That means American authors are subject to being sued under British libel law, which in some cases puts the initial burden on the defendant to prove the truth of what she has written. British libel law is so tilted against writers that the United Nations Human Rights Committee criticized it last month for discouraging discussion of important matters of public interest. Read more ...
Last spring, legislators in New York State joined with the governor, David Paterson, in passing a law entitled the Libel Tourism Protection Act. The act has a narrow focus. It empowers the state’s courts to invalidate a judgment of libel or defamation against a writer or publisher who resides or does business in New York, so long as that judgment was obtained in a country that affords writers and publishers a lesser degree of free-speech protection than does the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
Though the law does not say so explicitly, it was passed without much controversy because a writer in New York State was in danger of being driven into penury by one of the world’s richest men—a Saudi banker with Irish citizenship who has undertaken to intimidate and silence writers, editors, and publishers daring to examine his role in the murky world of Islamic charitable giving. Over the past decades, Sheikh Khalid bin Mahfouz has become the world’s foremost “libel tourist,” journeying beyond his own country to find a hospitable judge’s ear in Great Britain. According to the late Robert O. Collins—whose 2006 book Alms for Jihad, co-authored with J. Millard Burr, was one of bin Mahfouz’s targets—the tactic has been brilliantly successful. In three dozen cases in which legal action has been either threatened or carried through to trial, bin Mahfouz has succeeded in securing apologies and cash damages. Cambridge University Press, the publisher of Collins and Burr’s study, had every copy of their book put through a shredder and pulped.
The undersigned organizations express their strong support for the Free Speech Protection Act of 2008 (S. 2977). Libel suits filed in foreign countries pose a grave danger to the free speech rights of American authors, journalists, publishers, and readers. S. 2977 provides authors with the weapons they need to protect their right to express themselves freely and ensures that the libel laws of countries that provide less protection for free speech will not undermine American laws or chill protected speech.
Increasingly in recent years, individuals who challenge the accuracy of published materials have attempted to strike back at their authors by filing lawsuits in foreign countries, most commonly England. U.S. law requires the party alleging libel to prove that the statements objected to are actually false. To avoid this burden, libel plaintiffs have engaged in forum shopping - filing lawsuits in countries with either different burdens of proof or different definitions of libel. The most notorious recent example of this libel tourism is the lawsuit filed by Saudi billionaire Khalid Salim bin Mahfouz, who sued Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld, an American expert on terrorism, over statements in her book, Funding Evil: How Terrorism is Financed and How to Stop It. Despite the fact that the book was never published in England and that a mere 23 copies had been sold there by online booksellers, Bin Mafouz brought suit in an English court. Under British law, the burden of proof in the first instance is on the defendant to prove the truth of any allegedly libelous statement. Faced with enormous legal costs to satisfy this requirement, Ehrenfeld refused to defend the suit. The English court entered a default judgment, enjoined further distribution of the book in the United Kingdom and awarded substantial damages and legal fees. Bin Mafouz's English lawsuit had the predictable effect of chilling Ehrenfeld’s free speech rights and effectively silencing anyone else who might consider publishing similar statements. It sent the message that he is willing and able to challenge any investigation of his family’s, and the Saudi royal family’s alleged ties to the funding of terrorism. He has refused to disclaim an intention to attempt to enforce the judgment in the United States, further reinforcing its chilling effect. Read more ...
America is the land of liberty. It is the place where political expression is protected by law and custom. It is the freest nation on Earth... unless, of course, you wish to talk about Islam. Then, unless you bow and scrape, unless you assert its supposed peacefulness, unless you bend over backwards to make sure that you don’t “offend” Islamists, you will be shut down. At least this is true if you wish to publish a book about Islam, it appears.
Not long ago, a book titled “Alms for Jihad” was ridiculously voluntarily destroyed, “pulped” being the term, by its own publisher. This unusual action was taken because one activist Muslim took the bookseller to libel court and won, saying that he was somehow maligned by allegations in the book. The ridiculous part is that the book was published by Cambridge University Press (Cambridge, Mass. USA) but was sued by Sheikh Khalid Bin Mahfouz in a British court. Neither the court nor the complainant was American. Yet, this foolish American publisher voluntarily destroyed its entire run and went to the effort to send a letter to libraries to tell them to remove the book from shelves over the verdict of this foreign court. Read more ...
Some commentators believe Mr Justice Eady is single-handedly creating a new, tougher, law of privacy in Britain.
But his actions are having the opposite effect in the U.S. - where there are plans for new laws to protect freedom of speech.
The spur was a 2004 case in which a Saudi billionaire used our courts to sue an author for libel over a book which was published in the U.S. and sold just 23 copies here.
In Funding Evil: How Terrorism is Financed and How to Stop It, the author Rachel Ehrenfeld alleged Sheikh Khalid bin Mahfouz helped fund Osama bin Laden.
Mahfouz could have sued in America, where almost all his books were sold - but instead chose Britain, where the libel laws are generally agreed to offer far less protection to writers.
Mr Justice Eady ruled against Dr Ehrenfeld, ordering her to pay £30,000 damages.
As a result, senators have introduced the Free Speech Protection Act to shield writers from libel suits brought in foreign courts.
Mr. Collins is emeritus professor of history at UC Santa Barbara and co-author (with J. Millard Burr) of Alms for Jihad: Charity and Terrorism in the Islamic World (Cambridge University Press, 2006). The authors have previously co-authored three books: Requiem for The Sudan: War, Drought, and Disaster Relief on the Nile (1995), Africa's Thirty Years' War: Chad, Libya, and the Sudan, 1963-1993 (1999), and Revolutionary Sudan: Hasan al-Turabi and the Islamist State, 1989-2000 (2003).
On April 3, 2007 Kevin Taylor, Intellectual Property Manager for the Cambridge University Press (CUP), contacted Millard Burr and myself that the solicitors for Shaykh Khalid bin Mahfouz, Kendall Freeman, had informed CUP of eleven "allegations of defamation" in our book Alms for Jihad: Charities and Terrorism in the Islamic World and requested a response. On April 20 CUP received our seventeen page "robust defence," but it soon became apparent that CUP had decided not to defend Alms for Jihad given "knowledge of claims from previous litigation" and that "the top-line allegations of defamation made against us by bin Mahfouz are sustainable and cannot be successfully defended ...certainly not in the English courts, which is where the current action arises." Read more ...
Legislature Passes Libel Terrorism Protection Act To Protect American Journalists and Authors From Overseas Defamation Lawsuits
Albany, NY (March 31, 2008) – The New York State Legislature today unanimously passed the “Libel Terrorism Protection Act” (S.6687/A.9652), sponsored by Assemblyman Rory Lancman (D-Queens) and Senate Deputy Majority Leader Dean G. Skelos (R-Rockville Centre).
When signed into law by Governor David Paterson, this legislation will protect American journalists and authors from foreign lawsuits that infringe on their First Amendment rights.
In Ehrenfeld v. Mahout, New York State’s highest court held that it would not protect Dr. Ehrenfeld from a British lawsuit filed by Saudi billionaire Khalid Salim Bin Mahfouz, where she was ordered to pay over $225,000 in damages and legal fees to Bin Mahfouz, as well as apologize and destroy existing copies of her books.
Dr. Ehrenfeld sought a court order in November of 2006 to protect her constitutional rights, but in a ruling with national First Amendment implications which sent legal shockwaves throughout newsrooms across America, as well as potentially undermining our ability to expose terrorism’s financial and logistical support networks, the New York Court of Appeals ruled that it does not have jurisdiction to protect Americans – on U.S. soil – from foreign defamation judgments, which contradict the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.
The Libel Terrorism Protection Act declares overseas defamation judgments unenforceable in New York unless the foreign defamation law provides, in substance and application, the same free speech protections guaranteed under our own constitution, and it gives New York residents and publishers the opportunity to have their day in court here in New York.
“This is a great day for free speech and freedom of the press, and I urge Governor Paterson to quickly sign this legislation into law. This law will protect our journalists and authors from trumped up libel charges in kangaroo courts in overseas jurisdictions which don’t share our commitment to free speech and freedom of the press,” said Lancman.
“This law will give New York's journalists, authors and press the protection and tools they need to continue to fearlessly expose the truth about terrorism and its enablers, and to maintain New York's place as the free speech capitol of the world,” Lancman concluded. Lancman’s remarks on the Assembly floor are viewable here.
“The truth is a critically-important component in the War on Terror,” said Senator Skelos. “This important new law will protect American authors and journalists who expose terrorist networks and their financiers. In its decision, the Court of Appeals called upon the State Legislature to revise the law. Today, we made clear that New York State will safeguard the First Amendment and these courageous writers.”
The state will protect authors against foreign libel judgments after a US journalist was sued by a Saudi businessman in London
Politicians in New York have acted to protect the state’s writers and publishers from so-called libel tourism after an English libel judgment went against an American author.
The Libel Terrorism Protection Act was given a unanimous passage in the state Senate in Albany, the New York Law Journal reported. The new bill was introduced after the New York Court of Appeals ruled in December that the state's laws did not protect Rachel Ehrenfeld, an American author, from a possible bid by a Saudi Arabian businessman to enforce a summary judgment issued by the High Court in London.
The bill is intended to amend New York's so-called "long-arm statute" in order to give the state's courts jurisdiction over a foreign libel claimant who won a judgment against an author or publisher with sufficient physical or financial ties to the state.
It would allow New York's courts to declare that a foreign judgment was unenforceable if the courts decided that the libel laws in foreign jurisdictions did not protect freedom of speech and the press to the same extent as the laws in New York and the US. Read more ...
February 25, 2008 -- A CRITICAL First Amendment bill, the "Libel Terrorism Reform Act" is pending in both houses of the state Legislature. It was written in direct response to the Court of Appeals' decision in the case of Ehrenfeld v. bin Mahfouz.
Rachel Ehrenfeld is an Israeli-American terrorism scholar and internationally recognized counterterrorism expert. In her book "Funding Evil: How Terrorism Is Financed and How to Stop It," she identified Khalid bin Mahfouz, banker to the Saudi royal family and one of the world's richest men, as a leading terrorism financier.
Ehrenfeld cites government documents as evidence for these particulars:
* As far back as 1996, French, British and US intelligence believed bin Mahfouz had erected a banking system to benefit Osama bin Laden.
* Bin Mahfouz's bogus Muwafaq (Blessed Relief) "charitable foundation" fronted for several other terror groups, including Makhtab al-Khidamat, al Qaeda, Hamas and Abu-Sayyaf. The "charity's" head was Yassin al-Qadi, later designated by the State and Treasury Departments as an international terrorist. Read more ...
FRESH MEADOWS, NY (January 14, 2008) – Assemblyman Rory Lancman (D-Queens) and Senate Deputy Majority Leader Dean Skelos (R-Long Island) introduced the “Libel Terrorism Protection Act” (S.6687/A.9652) on the front steps of The New York Public Library yesterday (the entire press conference is viewable here:
The legislation will protect American authors and journalists from foreign lawsuits that infringe on their First Amendment rights. Senator Skelos and Assemblyman Lancman were joined by Senator Martin Golden (R-Brooklyn), noted First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams and Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld, a New York author who was sued for libel in Britain by a Saudi businessman whom she identified in her book “Funding Evil – How Terrorism is Financed and How to Stop It” as a financial supporter of terrorist organizations. In Ehrenfeld v. Mahfouz, New York State’s highest court held last month that it would not protect Dr. Ehrenfeld from a British lawsuit filed by Saudi billionaire Khalid Salim Bin Mahfouz, where she was ordered to pay over $225,000 in damages and legal fees to Bin Mahfouz, as well as apologize and destroy existing copies of her books. Dr. Ehrenfeld sought a court order to protect her constitutional rights, but in a ruling with national First Amendment implications sending legal shockwaves throughout newsrooms across America, as well as potentially undermining our ability to expose terrorism’s financial and logistical support networks, the New York Court of Appeals ruled that it does not have jurisdiction to protect Americans – on U.S. soil – from foreign defamation judgments, which contradict the U.S. First Amendment rights. “When American journalists and authors can be hauled into kangaroo courts on phony-baloney libel charges in overseas jurisdictions who don't share our belief in freedom of speech or a free press, all of us are threatened and our war effort is weakened,” said Lancman. “This legislation will give New York's journalists, authors and press the protection and tools they need to continue to fearlessly expose the truth about terrorism and its enablers, and to maintain New York's place as the free speech capitol of the world,” said Lancman. “The ability to expose the truth about international terrorist activities is critically-important to the global war on terror,” said Senator Skelos. “These foreign courts are trampling the First Amendment protections guaranteed to American writers and journalists by our Constitution and this legislation will ensure that they cannot infringe upon our freedom,” said Senator Skelos. "Under the Libel Terrorism Protection Act, writers and journalists would have foreign defamation suits declared unenforceable in New York unless the foreign law provides the same free speech protections guaranteed under our Constitution. In effect, we are giving New Yorkers a chance to have their fair day in court," said Senator Golden.
Washington , DC , January 14, 2008: The Association of American Publishers (AAP) welcomed the introduction of legislation in the New York State legislature that will make it harder for “libel tourists” to threaten authors and publishers in New York by bringing meritless defamation actions in plaintiff-friendly foreign courts. The legislation was announced at a press conference on the steps of the New York Public Library on Sunday morning, January 13.
The legislation was introduced by New York State Senate Deputy Majority Leader Dean Skelos and Assemblyman Rory Lancman in response to a December 20 ruling that New York courts lacked jurisdiction to hear U.S. author Rachel Ehrenfeld’s lawsuit seeking to have a British default libel judgment against her declared unenforceable in the United States . Ehrenfeld, author of Funding Evil: How Terrorism is Financed and How to Stop It, was sued by Saudi billionaire Khalid bin Mahfouz in a London court under the U.K. ’s notoriously plaintiff-friendly libel laws, despite the fact that the book was never published in Great Britain and neither Ehrenfeld nor bin Mahfouz resides there. Although she refused to take part in the suit, Ehrenfeld was hit with a default judgment involving substantial monetary damages, a “declaration of falsity” against the book, a demand for a public apology, and an injunction against U.K. publication.
The proposed legislation would amend New York ’s code of civil practice to prohibit enforcement of a foreign libel judgment unless a New York court determines that it satisfies the free speech and press protections guaranteed by the U.S. and the New York State constitutions. The legislation would also amend ‘s New York “long-arm” statute to allow courts, under certain circumstances, to exercise personal jurisdiction over non-residents who obtain foreign libel judgments against New York residents in order to grant the type of declaratory relief that Ehrenfeld sought but was unable to obtain.
Judith Platt, who directs AAP’s Freedom to Read program, said: “AAP is pleased to see the introduction of legislation that will make it harder for libel tourists such as Khalid bin Mahfouz to prey on authors and publishers in New York . The New York Court of Appeals ruling disclosed the need for clearer statutory authority to safeguard free speech rights threatened by libel tourism. We're grateful to Senator Skelos and Assemblyman Lancman for moving so quickly to meet that need.”
The Association of American Publishers is the national trade association of the U.S. book publishing industry. AAP’s approximately 300 members include most of the major commercial book publishers in the United States , as well as smaller and non-profit publishers, university presses and scholarly societies. AAP members publish hardcover and paperback books in every field, educational materials for the elementary, secondary, post-secondary and professional markets, scholarly journals, computer software and electronic products and services. The Association represents an industry whose very existence depends upon the free exercise of rights guaranteed by the First Amendment.
This Sunday, January 13th at 10:30 a.m. on the steps of the New York Public Library, 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue, I urge you to attend a bipartisan news conference by New York State Senate Deputy Majority Leader Dean Skelos and Assemblyman Rory I. Lancman where they will announce legislation designed to protect journalists, author and publishers s from lawsuits filed outside the U.S. by foreign nationals seeking to muzzle the First Amendment rights of American citizens, particular those reporting on terrorism and its financiers.
This effort comes on the heels of a New York Court of Appeals ruling that has stunned many in the legal, media, and publishing community. The court held it could not protect New York author Rachel Ehrenfeld from a British lawsuit she lost by default filed by Saudi billionaire Khalid Salim bin Mahfouz where she was ordered to pay over $225,000 for detailing in her book how Bin Mahfouz, and some of his family, are allegedly tied to funding terrorist organizations. Bin Mahfouz used the U.K. legal system to obtain more than 36 similar judgments, affecting the U.S. media.
Dr. Ehrenfeld sought a court order to protect her Constitutional rights, but in a ruling with First Amendment implications sending legal shockwaves throughout newsrooms across America, as well as potentially undermining our ability to expose terrorism’s financial and logistical support networks of our enemies, the New York Court of Appeals ruled that it does not have jurisdiction to protect Americans – on U.S. soil – from a foreign defamation verdict.
The two lawmakers, Ehrenfeld, and members of the bar, will warn that without this legislation, the contents of the New York Public Library could be subject to assault by off shore nationals seeking to silence public debate in America. Your participation would add enormously to this effort and underscore the gravity of the threat.
Unless the U.S. Congress and New York legislatures act immediately to stop them, foreign terror financiers and libel tourists now can essentially impose sharia (Islamic) law on American writers and publishers.
Intended or not, a narrow, technical New York Appeals Court decision on Thursday Dec. 20, 2007 produces that net effect. The ruling concerns jurisdiction in Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld's suit against Saudi billionaire Khalid bin Mahfouz, seeking a federal declaratory judgment against him to render unenforceable in the U.S. a U.K. High Court default "libel" decision. By implication, the New York Appeals Court ruling harms all publishers and writers in New York, the world’s publishing capital.
Ehrenfeld's case stems from her 2003 book, Funding Evil: How Terrorism is Financed - and How to Stop It, where American Center for Democracy Director reports Mahfouz' well-documented terror funding. (Full disclosure: Since September 2005, I've been an ACD Senior Fellow.) As always after such terror financing reports, Mahfouz sued Ehrenfeld for libel in Britain. His attorneys informed U.K. High Court Justice David Eady that former CIA director R. James Woolsey wrote her book's foreword. "Say no more," Eady replied. "I award you a judgment by default, and if you want, an injunction, too." Read more ...
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