Posted on 08/11/2004 4:18:38 AM PDT by RatherBiased.com
It's the kind of story you'd expect to hear about on a 48 Hours episode but this one is no media hype: a Rochester, N.Y. man caught up in a case of mistaken identity is threatening to sue CBS for falsely labeling him as terrorist suspect.
The man, Asif Iqbal, whose problems have been going on since 2002 when U.S. forces in Afghanistan arrested another man with the same name, is now facing even greater problems after CBS showed a picture of him in an August 4 Evening News broadcast. It also placed the picture on its Web site until Iqbal's lawyer told CBS to remove it.
Since that time, the 31-year-old software consultant has suspended all of his travel plans and threatened to sue the network unless it runs a correction on the air.
"I expect such giant media companies to validate what they put on the air," Iqbal told the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle. "I don't want to get into any unnecessary trouble because I have done nothing wrong."
"When you see a face of someone they're calling a former detainee, that's all people will see," Katherine Piccola, a local attorney who is representing the American Iqbal, told the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle. "He's already been damaged. It was grossly irresponsible to run his picture."
In a statement printed on the television industry site TVNewser, Piccola stressed her client's desire to clear his name.
"All available options, including redress with the courts, are being considered by my client whose main concern is for his personal safety and establishing that he has no connection whatsoever to Guantanamo Bay and/or any suspected terrorist activities."
Iqbal, who has lived in the U.S for ten years and hopes to become a citizen in the coming months, may actually have grounds for a slander suit since the photograph of him that CBS used came from an Associated Press article published earlier this year describing some of Iqbal's troubles.
"How they ended up picking up the wrong guy, I don't know," says AP photo editor Joel Jean-Pierre."If it was labeled wrong, we would send a correction. But they are the ones who are supposed to pick that up, to police their own operation."
In the wire service's archives, the photograph that CBS used clearly indicates that the American Iqbal is not the same as the other one, who also was born in Pakistan but is a British citizen who is also 9 years younger.
In American media law, a private individual filing as a plaintiff need only prove that the defendant was negligent in verifying the veracity of information it presented as fact, as in the case of Richard Jewell, a former security guard who was falsely accused by some media outlets of planting a bomb during Atlanta's 1996 Olympic Games. Since then, Jewell has won hundreds of thousands of dollars in out-of-court settlements.
CBS has refrained from commenting on the mistake. It did, however, leave a message for the Rochester paper that it had removed the photograph from its Web site.
I'm NOT an Legal beagle, (and I didn't stay @ a Holiday Express last night :)...But, See-BS really couldn't give a damn!..*sneering* "This is SOooo unimportant, We have more important things to do! We're busy electing "Hanoi John" F'n Kerry"
Should have clarified that non-legal types can comment, too :-D
You might be interested in this. Please comment if you get the chance.
So I think this man has a rock solid case, but for less money than Jewell recovered.
Congressman Billybob
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Thanks for the insight. Are there any other cyberlawyers on the forum who might be interested in this story?
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