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This guy was pure scum.

Mahfouz sued Rachel Ehrenfeld for libel after she wrote in her book, Funding Evil, that he was involved in funding Hamas and al Qaeda.

But he didn't sue her in the United States where she lives and her book is published. He instead took advantage of British libel laws that place the burden of the proof on the defendant, rather than the plantiff, and sued her in Britian. Neither of them actually reside there. But his lawyers claimed because her book is sold via online retailers like Amazon.com, and that meant people in Britian could special order them, the case was valid. Britians libel laws have given rise to a phenomenon of wealthy "libel tourists" or "libel terrorists", who sue there on the slimmest British connection in order to ensure a favorable ruling.

Bin Mahfouz's legal team made sure the case was heard by a Judge David Eady, who had a long history of strange rulings that ran in favor of censorship and against free speech. In May 2005, Justice Eady ruled Ehrenfeld had to apologize to bin Mahfouz and pay over $225,000. The fine remains uncollected and she's refused to apologize. But just like Mike Savage, she has been banned from being able to travel to Britian, and her writing and research work has been banned.

Ehrenfeld countersued in NY, asking the 2nd court of appeals for declaration that the British judgement was contrary to the 1st Admendment and hence unenforceable on a U.S. Citizen. The court agreed. In 2008, this case paved the way for the "Libel Terrorism Protection Act" which offers New Yorkers greater protection against libel judgements in countries whose laws are inconsistent with the freedom of speech granted by the US Constitution.

And Ehrenfeld wasn't the only victim. In 2007, he sued the Columbia Press that examined the alleged money trail between him and jihadists: Alms for Jihad: Charity and Terrorism in the Islamic World by J. Millard Burr and Robert O. Collins. Columbia turned around and threw the authors under the bus and ordered bookstores to return their copies and libaries to remove the book from their shelves.

But research found that on a Bin Mahfouz information website bankrolled by himself, that bin Mohfouz was a "principle donor" in the Mawafaq "Blessed Relief" foundation, an Islamic Charity that the US treasury department identified in 2001 as "an al Qaeda front that receives funding from wealthy Saudi businessmen."

In a 2001 note that was made public in June 2007, France's foreign intelligence agency said that in 1996, bin Mahfouz was known as one of the architects of a banking scheme constructed for the benefit of Osama bin Laden.

The report claims that both the U.S. and British intelligence services knew this.

Imagine how this would of affected the ruling of the Ehrenfeld case or the actions of the Columbia Press if this information had been made public sooner.