Bloomberg reports:
Britain’s Daily Telegraph newspaper lost a bid to overturn a ruling it libeled U.K. politician George
Galloway by reporting he was in the pay of ousted Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
Galloway, 51, was awarded 150,000 pounds ($263,000) in damages in 2004 over a series of articles
alleging he secretly pocketed hundreds of thoNIKE SHOXnds of pounds from Hussein’s regime through the
United Nations’ oil-for-food program.
The Court of Appeal in London today backed that judgment, saying the newspaper hadn’t merely reported
the allegations but “adopted and embellished them.”…
Under U.K. law, the Daily Telegraph may also be liable for the politician’s legal costs, which are
estimated at around 1.5 million pounds, according to lawyers involved with the proceedings.
Let me be the first to say that – whatever the merits of Galloway’s claims – this judgment, British
libel law generally, and people who sue for libel suck. The ITN v. LM suit, in which a news
organization took a small magazine to court for exposing its lies and won, proved once and for all that
truth is no defense in the UK. But whether what someone thinks of another is true or not, reputations
are not personal property – and if Galloway owned his, he would have an indisputable case against
himself for destroying it.
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