Posted on 03/19/2004 6:23:56 PM PST by nuconvert
Maverick Lawmaker Accepts Damages Over Newspaper Claims He Accepted Iraqi Money
Mar 19, 2004
By Jane Wardell/ Associated Press Writer
LONDON (AP) - Outspoken British lawmaker George Galloway accepted undisclosed damages and a public apology from the Christian Science Monitor newspaper Friday over an article it published alleging that he took money from Saddam Hussein's Iraqi regime. Julia Schopflin, a lawyer for the newspaper's publisher, The First Church of Christ, Scientist, told the High Court that the Boston-based publication accepted that allegations made in the article were false.
The report was based on documents that later proved to be forgeries, something the newspaper acknowledged in a published article in June 2003 after conducting its own investigation. The newspaper also apologized in the article to Galloway.
Galloway - expelled from Britain's ruling Labor Party in October after urging British soldiers to refuse to fight in Iraq - said he was happy with the out-of-court settlement but called for British officials in Baghdad to investigate the forged documents.
Christian Science Monitor said it received the documents from an Iraqi general who was later reported to have provided other publications with similar fakes. The documents purported to show that Galloway received payments of more than $10 million in return for his support of Saddam's regime.
"The allegations were highly defamatory of Mr. Galloway," his lawyer, Mark Bateman, told the court in London.
Schopflin, who also represented Christian Science Monitor editor Paul Van Slambrouck, said the article was published in good faith on documents the publication believed to be genuine, but it now accepted they were forgeries.
"It deeply regrets that the article was published and again offers its sincere apologies to Mr. Galloway," Schopflin said.
Galloway, a left-wing legislator who campaigned for years against the United Nations sanctions imposed on Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War, is also suing The Daily Telegraph newspaper over similar allegations, based on different documents.
The Telegraph won't settle. And their docs aren't the only place Galloway's name shows up. This should be fun.
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