More
recently, British historian David Irving sued
American scholar Deborah Lipstadt in England for
having characterized him as a Holocaust denier and
was ultimately so discredited in court that an
English judge not only determined that he was
indeed a Holocaust denier but an "antisemite" and
"racist" as well. New York, Sunday, June 10, 2007
The
Islamic Society of Boston loses its libel case, and
its reputation Be Careful What
You Sue For By Floyd
Abrams PURSUING a libel or slander suit
has long been a dangerous enterprise. Oscar
Wilde sued the father of his young lover
Alfred Douglas for having referred to him as
a "posing Sodomite" and wound up not only dropping
his case but being tried, convicted and jailed for
violating England's repressive laws banning
homosexual conduct. Alger Hiss sued
Whittaker Chambers for slander for accusing
Hiss of being a member of the Communist Party with
Chambers, and of illegally passing secret
government documents to him for transmission to the
Soviet Union. In the end, Hiss was jailed for
perjury for having denied Chambers's claims before
a grand jury.  David
Irving comments: I PRESUME that Abrams
is Jewish, hence his obsession with the
historic Lipstadt trial; I have long moved
on from there.
In one important legal
aspect I did slip up in that Lipstadt
case; when the defendants introduced
"racism" and "antisemitism" I should have
pointed out that - Lipstadt herself had not made such
claims in her book and
- they had not been pleaded, and I
should have asked the Judge to disallow
this line of defence in the
courtroom.
I was so overwhelmed (fighting a
40-strong team single handed) that I did
not spot this. As said, I should have
asked the Court to throw out this line of
defence (which is not to say that Sir
Charles Gray, the Judge, would have
necessarily been minded to indulge my
objection).
In interlocutory
hearings before the main action, all my
pre-emptive materials proving I am not
"anti-Semitic" or "racist" had been thrown
out of my Discovery as irrelevant
to the issues then pleaded, on the
defendants' application.
At the time that ruling
was perhaps right; but then, sensing that
they were peculiarly weak on the
"Holocaust denier" and other allegations,
they changed their defence a few days
before the Trial. . .  
SKUNK-FACT:
Professor Lipstadt's lawyers paid her
expert witnesses over half a million
pounds, a million dollars, in initial
fees. Most also published books on the
trial, some ,like Professor Robert Jan
Van Pelt's being subsidized by Israeli
organisations, despite having denied on
oath that this was their intention.
In addition -- although
there is no suggestion that the leader of
the expert witnesses Professor Richard
"Skunky" Evans anticipated this at the
time he drew up his neutral evidence --
Lipstadt's co-defendant Penguin Books
Ltd., part of the billion-dollar Pearson
Group, signed a one million pound book
contract with him after the trial victory
which his unbiased expert evidence had so
obviously procured. |
More recently, British historian David
Irving sued American
scholar Deborah
Lipstadt in England for having characterized
him as a Holocaust denier and was ultimately so
discredited in court that an English judge not only
determined that he was indeed a Holocaust denier
but an "antisemite" and "racist" as well.On May 29 of this year [2007], the
potential vulnerability of a plaintiff that misuses
the courts to sue for libel once again surfaced
when the Islamic Society of Boston abandoned a
libel action it had commenced against a number of
Boston residents, a Boston newspaper and television
station, and Steven Emerson, a
recognized expert on
terrorism and, in particular,
extremist Islamic
groups. In all, 17 defendants were named. Those accused had publicly raised questions
about a real estate transaction entered into
between the Boston Redevelopment Authority and the
Islamic Society, which transferred to the latter a
plot of land in Boston, at a price well below
market value, for the construction of a mosque and
other facilities. The critics urged the Boston
authorities to reconsider their decision to provide
the land on such favorable terms (which included
promised contributions to the community by the
Islamic Society, such as holding lectures and
offering other teaching about Islam) to an
organization whose present or former leaders had
close connections with or who had otherwise
supported terrorist organizations. On the face of it, the Islamic Society was a
surprising entry into the legal arena. Its founder,
Abdurahman Alamoudi, had been indicted in
2003 for his role in a terrorism financing scheme,
pleaded guilty, and had been sentenced to a 23-year
prison term. Another individual, Yusef
Al-Qaradawi, who had been repeatedly identified
by the Islamic Society as a member of its board of
trustees, had been described by a U.S. Treasury
official as a senior Muslim Brotherhood member and
had endorsed the killing of Americans in Iraq and
Jews everywhere. One director of the Islamic
Society, Walid Fitaihi, had written that the
Jews would be "scourged" because of their
"oppression, murder and rape of the worshipers of
Allah," and that they had "perpetrated the worst of
evils and brought the worst corruption to the
earth." The Islamic Society nonetheless sued, claiming
both libel and civil-rights violations. Motions to
dismiss the case were denied, and the litigants
began to compel third parties to turn over
documents bearing on the case. In short order, one
after another of the allegations made by the
Islamic Society collapsed.
THE complaint asserted that the defendants had
falsely stated that money had been sent to the
Islamic Society from "Saudi/Middle Eastern
sources," and that such statements and others had
devastated its fund-raising efforts. But documents
obtained in Discovery demonstrated without
ambiguity that fund-raising was (as one
representative of the Islamic Society had put it)
"robust," with at least $7.2 million having been
wired to the Islamic Society from Middle Eastern
sources, mostly from Saudi Arabia. The Islamic Society claimed it had been libeled
by a variety of expressions of concern by the
defendants that it had provided support for
extremist organizations. But bank records obtained
by the defendants showed that the Islamic Society
had served as funder both of the Holy Land
Foundation, a Hamas-controlled organization that
the U.S. Treasury Department had said "exists to
raise money in the United States to promote
terror," and of the Benevolence International
Foundation, which was identified by the 9/11
Commission as an al Qaeda fund-raising arm. The complaint maintained that any reference to
recent connections between the Islamic Society and
the now-imprisoned Abdurahman Alamoudi was false
since it "had had no connection with him for
years." But an Islamic Society check written in
November 2000, two months after Alamoudi publicly
proclaimed his support for Hamas and Hezbollah, was
uncovered in discovery which directed money to pay
for Alamoudi's travel expenses. To top it all off, documents obtained from the
Boston Redevelopment Authority itself revealed
serious, almost incomprehensible, conflicts of
interest in the real-estate deal. It turned out
that the city agency employee in charge of
negotiating the deal with the Islamic Society was
at the same time a member of that group and
secretly advising it about how to obtain the land
at the cheapest possible price. So the case was dropped. No money was paid by
the defendants, no apologies offered, and no limits
on their future speech imposed. But it is not at
all as if nothing happened. The case offers two
enduring lessons. The first is that those who think
about suing for libel should think again before
doing so. And then again once more. While all the
ultimate consequences to the Islamic Society for
bringing the lawsuit remain uncertain, any adverse
consequences could have been avoided by not suing
in the first place. The second lesson is that in one way (and
perhaps no other) we should learn from the English
system and award counsel fees to the winning side
in cases like this, which are brought to inhibit
speech on matters of serious public import. Because
all the defendants in this case were steadfast and
refused to settle, they were eventually vindicated.
But the real way to avoid meritless cases such as
this is to have a body of law that makes clear that
plaintiffs who bring them will be held financially
responsible for doing so. Mr. Abrams, a partner in the law
firm of Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP,
represented Steven Emerson in the case discussed
in this op-ed. 
 
Our
dossier on the Lipstradt Trial, Jan-April
2000-
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write to David
Irving