King Abdullah and Queen Elizabeth, October 2007

Britain Craven in Face of Despotism

By Nick Cohen
The Observer, April 13, 2008

Edited by Andy Ross

Lord Justice Moses and Mr Justice Sullivan last week said the Saudis' successful attempt to bully the Serious Fraud Office was a conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, a conspiracy that, shamefully, the Blair government had joined.

Whitehall did have a cynical argument against the judges, though not one that would stand up in court. Saudi Arabia is a special case, it runs. Most despotisms are like Zimbabwe, nasty, corrupt and poor. Saudi Arabia is nasty, corrupt but fantastically rich because of its oil wealth. So when it threatens to cancel orders for Eurofighters or suspend co-operation in the war against al-Qaeda unless we obey orders, we can appease it. No precedent is being set.

The judges noticed a knowing tone of voice behind the ministers' attempts to explain away the nobbling of the police investigation. Government lawyers seemed to be saying that Saudi Arabia was a regrettable anomaly whose 'threats were a part of life'.

But Saudi Arabia is no longer an anomaly and the way the world is moving, threats to the rule of law are going to become a far greater part of our lives.

Europe's most blatant example is Vladimir Putin's Russia. When its agents poisoned Alexander Litvinenko with polonium-210, the Russians were as astonished as the Saudis that Britain insisted on bringing alleged criminals to justice.

In The New Cold War, his study of Putin's impact on Europe, Edward Lucas of the Economist argues that the Russian elite has understood that money can be used to undermine freedom because there are many in the West who believe that 'capitalism is a system in which money matters more than freedom'.

The sad truth is that among the developed democracies, Britain is the most anxious to prostitute its laws by offering near immunity from prosecution to dictatorial financial interests.

So fraudsters enjoy a latitude in the City they don't enjoy on Wall Street. The Saudis were outraged by the attention of the SFO because its investigators hardly ever threaten to prosecute. Even when they do, the courts don't back them up.
 

Terrorizing Publishing

By Roger Kimball
New York Sun, April 10, 2008

Edited by Andy Ross

When the American researcher Rachel Ehrenfeld published "Funding Evil: How Terrorism Is Financed — and How to Stop It," she suddenly found herself slapped with a libel suit — but not in America. A Saudi banker, Khalid bin Mahfouz, brought the suit in England. Even though the book was not distributed in Great Britain, a British judge ruled that Ms. Ehrenfeld must apologize and pay Mr. Mahfouz £110,000.

Ms. Ehrenfeld promptly countersued in New York, asking the federal courts to rule that the British judgment contravened the First Amendment. Though the Second Circuit seemed sympathetic to her plight, Ms. Ehrenfeld's claim depended upon whether, as a matter of New York State law, the court had jurisdiction over Mr. Mahfouz. Just before Christmas, New York's highest state court ruled that jurisdiction was lacking.

Mr. Mahfouz is an energetic libel tourist. His Web site lists successful actions against three other books: "Reaping the Whirlwind: The Taliban Movement in Afghanistan," "Forbidden Truth: U.S.-Taliban Secret Oil Diplomacy and The Failed Hunt for Bin Laden," and "Alms for Jihad: Charity and Terrorism in the Islamic World."

The case against "Alms for Jihad" by Robert O. Collins, a professor emeritus of history at the University of California, and J. Millard Burr, a retired employee of the State Department, was especially egregious. The publisher, Cambridge University Press, instantly capitulated to Mr. Mahfouz's demands. Not only did it pulp all unsold copies of the 2006 book, but it paid "substantial damages" to Mr. Mahfouz and even went so far as to contact libraries worldwide to ask them to remove the book from their shelves.

What can we do about it? On January 14, Assemblyman Rory Lancman of Queens and Senate Deputy Majority Leader Dean Skelos of Long Island introduced the "Libel Terrorism Protection Act" in New York. The legislation was recently passed and now awaits the governor's signature.
 

AR  We need to resist Saudi despotism.