Can't be there. I'm a delegate to the 2008 Texas GOP Convention June 12th-14th.
http://www.texasgop.org/site/PageServer?pagename=2008_Convention
Posted on 03/17/2008 4:47:20 PM PDT by BGHater
Billionaire leverages harsher libel rules to suppress unflattering book
NEW YORK - Rachel Ehrenfeld writes about terrorism for a living. But now she is the one who feels targeted.
Her modest midtown Manhattan apartment is filled to the ceiling with books, most having to do with global terror networks and Mideast conflict. Sitting at her desk, she gazes out at the Hudson River. She says she has a hard time placing her work. She says she has been blacklisted. If she travels to England, she fears she will be arrested.
"I feel like a leper," she said.
Ehrenfeld faces a $225,000 judgment obtained in a British court in a libel suit brought by a former banker to the Saudi royal family, billionaire Khalid bin Mahfouz. "That's the Damocles sword effect. He's holding it above my head to intimidate me and others," she said.
The source of the trouble is Ehrenfeld's book, "Funding Evil: How Terrorism is Financed and How to Stop It," published by Bonus Books. In it, she named bin Mahfouz as a financier of Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda. Bin Mahfouz responded by suing Ehrenfeld -- not in the U.S., but in England, which is friendlier to libel claims.
Bin Mahfouz maintains Ehrenfeld's statements about him are false and reckless and says she is perpetuating myths that have followed him around the globe, endangering his business affairs.
It isn't the first time bin Mahfouz has been tied to bin Laden -- or the first time he has responded by filing a lawsuit. On his personal Web site, he lists the lawsuits he has filed and corrections and apologies he has obtained from some of the leading newspapers in the world.
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...
Well he owned a big chunck of BCCI and he helped fund the Mujahadim in Afghanistan.
Now, BCCI was crooked but it could have been a lax arab bank that was used for various purposes.
And when he helping the Mujahadim, so was the American government.
So from the outside, I can’t tell..
But libel suits are really easy in Britain. Liberace won just such a suit against a newspaper that said he was homosexual.
Thank God for freedom of speech.
Is it that libel suits are easy in Britain, or libel suits against Americans?
Of the 36 writers and publishers that Saudi billionaire — and terror financier — Khalid bin Mahfouz has sued or threatened to sue in England for libel, only Rachel Ehrenfeld the author of Funding Evil: How Terrorism is Financed - and How to Stop It has not backed down.She explains how and why she is fighting back here and (video) here.
>>Is it that libel suits are easy in Britain, or libel suits against Americans?<<
Easier in general - no constitutional freedom of the press or 1st amendment.
I think it’s better our way. If someone makes an allegation in a book or the press that suggested you were a paedophile for example, wouldn’t you be damn sure you would want the onus to be on the scum-sucking journalists to prove their allegations were true, rather than you to prove them to be false?
Oh, strange to think of no 1st amendment! It is amazing how countries that we feel are so similar to us, and from where many Americans descended, have some very different aspects of government and law.
The Saudi's funnelled money for 'The Muslim Bomb' (Pakistan) through the BCCI.
Money was absolutely funneled through BCCI. And there was clearly intent to set it up without oversight.
But whether it was for rich Arabs to do whatever they wanted or specifically for terrorism, I don’t know.
Our Guests
Diana Furchtgott-Roth Diana Furchtgott-Roth is a Senior Fellow with the Hudson Institute whose expertise is economics, jobs and labor economics, tax policies and regulation.
During the Reagan Administration, she was an economist on the staff of Reagan's Council of Economic Advisors from 1986 to 1987. She served as Deputy Executive Director of the Domestic Policy Council and Associate Director of the Office of Policy Planning in the White House under President George H.W. Bush. She is co-authored Women's Figures: An Illustrated Guide to the Economics of Women in America and The Feminist Dilemma: When Success Is Not Enough and she was editor to the Overcoming Barriers to Entrepreneurship in the United States, now available in paperback. She has a weekly syndicated column on economics that appears in the New York Sun on Wednesday.
Rachel Ehrenfeld, Ph.D.
Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld s the Director of the American Center for Democracy (www.acdemocracy.org) and an author who writes on terrorism and corruption-related topics. She has lectured on these issues in many countries, and has advised banking communities, law enforcement agencies, and governments, including the U.S. Defense Department's Threat Reduction Agency. She testified before the European Parliament on how the Palestinian Authority uses aid money to fund its terror activities, provided evidence to the British Parliament on the corruption of the PA, and testified before the U.S. Congress on terrorism related issues. She currently works on issues related to the Financial and Economic Jihad against America and the West. Dr. Ehrenfeld's writings also appear in the New York Sun as well as many other news publications. She is author of the book, Funding Evil: How Terrorism is Financed - and How to Stop It.
We will have both of the featured books available at the June 12 Speaker Forum
Please R.S.V.P. to this meeting at http://www.nycyr.org/rsvp.php
Meeting Location
Soldiers', Sailors', Marines' & Airmen's Club 283 Lexington Ave (bet 36th & 37th St), 2nd Floor 7:30 PM to 9:30 PM Business Casual requested. Please be on time.
For After-politics Socializing
Come join us afterwards for drinks at: Margarita Murphy's 591 Third Avenue Between 38th and 39th streets
Can't be there. I'm a delegate to the 2008 Texas GOP Convention June 12th-14th.
http://www.texasgop.org/site/PageServer?pagename=2008_Convention
I prefer the American way. The plaintiff is the one taking up the defendant’s time, money, and freedom with the lawsuit or criminal charge. It is only right that the burden of proof be on the plaintiff.
So how do you prove a negative? If you are the victim of a libellous campaign by a tabloid newspaper whose word is taken as gospel by hundreds of thousands of credulous morons nationwide, in which it was insinuated that you were a depraved nonce, how would you prove you weren’t? You can’t prove a negative. The newspaper should have to prove that you are what they say you are, not the other way around.
I appreciate you probably won’t give a s**t because you are probably not a celebrity or in the public eye and you consider it unlikely that you would ever be subject to unfounded but undisprovable allegations, but it can and does happen to other people, and despite Britain’s strict libel laws, we have some of the worst press outlets for trying their luck by printing dubious things about other people...
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