French TV station wins Palestinian boy libel case ( Remember Mohammed al-Durra ?)

PARIS (Reuters) - Broadcaster France 2 won a libel case on Thursday over accusations it faked a report into the killing of a Palestinian boy whose death in 2000 became a symbol of the uprising known as the second intifada.

The Court of First Instance in Paris ordered Philippe Karsenty, director of Media Ratings, a website that comments on the media, to pay France 2 and its Israel correspondent Charles Enderlin symbolic damages of one euro ($1.25) each.

"Hopefully this decision will end a campaign of defamation that is particularly dangerous because it affects those with a duty to inform the public," Benedicte Amblard, lawyer for France 2, told reporters after the ruling.

The public sector station had said the case was a matter of principle and it had sought no more than symbolic damages.

Karsenty, who was also fined 1,000 euros and told to pay legal costs of 3,000 euros, said he would appeal the decision.

"It is a very somber day for France. The French justice system has validated a false report," he told reporters after the decision. "We are going to appeal straight away. It is a very surprising judgment."

Media Ratings accused France 2 of using staged footage in a report into the death of 12 year-old Mohammed al-Durra on September 30, 2000 and demanded the sacking of the station's head of news as well as Enderlin.

The report by France 2 accused Israeli troops of shooting the boy as he took cover with his father during gun battle between Israeli and Palestinian forces.

Harrowing footage shot by a France 2 cameraman, showing Mohammed and his father crouching in terror behind a wall apparently seconds before he was shot, was shown around the world and he was widely seen as a martyr in the Arab world.

Dhimmitude a la Fwance 2.

This decision is an absolute travesty. The injustice here is beyond description. By all accounts France 2 should have lost and been sent packing. And the comments of some of the Judges clearly indicated how France 2 had failed in all respects to present a case.

Clearly, political pressure was applied and the Judges caved to it.

And this article about the case and trial is bogus. It completely fails to reference the fact that peeps who had independently reviewed the 20 some odd minutes of raw footage found that it was all staged, staged deaths, staged injuries, staged everything. This article, like the France 2 decision, is shameful.

As far as I am concerned, the mere fact that they refuse, and have refused for years, to release the raw footage is proof positive of their deception.

Someone please tell me why, why, this footage was not released, and please tell me why the Defendant was unable to compel France 2 to produce the raw footage. Were this trial held in the U.S. I guarantee the footage would have been produced as a part of the discovery process. So what gives in France?

I am about to blow a gasket over this case and decision. For some reason, this case, like no other, reeks of injustice and strikes a cord with my sense of fairness. I think it is, because it is France, and something in me, no matter how illogical, had hoped that France's judicial system could withstand political influence and more importantly in the context of a case where the credibility of Islam and the Muslim perception of matters was on trial. In point of fact, by writing to this issue right now, I realize the source of my unusual anger and frustration. This trial evidences France's complete capitulation to Islam's insistence that only its point of view be heard. Alternatively stated, can you say dhimmitude? I think, I'll title this dhimmitude.

If the Judicial system is compromised then all is lost. Please tell me there is a rigorous, reliable, and independent appellate system in place. Please tell me there is a chance. In the US we often get whacked decisions, but intimately, you know that if appealed the rule of law will, in almost all cases, be upheld.

Looks like the outcome is uncertain.

The article states thusly :

" The truth about this case will probably never be determined. Or, to put it more precisely, no version of truth that is considered believable by all sides will ever emerge. For most of the Arab world, the rights and wrongs of the case are beyond dispute: an innocent boy was murdered, and his blood is on Israel's hands. Mention of contrary evidence or hypotheses only confirms the bottomless dishonesty of the guilty parties—much as Holocaust-denial theories do in the Western world. For the handful of people collecting evidence of a staged event, the truth is also clear, even if the proof is not in hand."

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