Today's Howard Beale moment
This war take many forms, and one area we are getting KILLED IN is information awareness.
1st AMENDMENT ON TRIAL
Saudi billionaire's lawsuit leads to book's destruction
'Ominous implications': Cambridge University Press defaults, apologizes, agrees to pay fees and damages
WORLDNETDAILY:Cambridge University Press has defaulted on a libel suit filed against it by a Saudi billionaire, issuing an apology, agreeing to pay court fees and damages and agreeing to destroy all unsold copies of a 2006 book by two American authors, as well as asking libraries to remove the book from their shelves.In an apology published on its website, the academic publisher wrote:
"In 2006 Cambridge University Press published 'Alms for Jihad' written by J. Millard Burr and Robert O. Collins which made certain defamatory allegations about Sheikh Khalid Bin Mahfouz and his family in connection with the funding of terrorism.
"Whilst the allegations were originally published in good faith, Cambridge University Press now recognizes that the information upon which they were based was wrong. Cambridge University Press accepts that there is no truth whatsoever in these serious allegations."
Kevin Taylor, intellectual property director at Cambridge, told the Cambridge Evening News the company had agreed to pay out a "fairly small amount" in compensation.
He said three expert academics read books before they are published, and pay particular attention to those with controversial issues, but said, "unfortunately this one slipped through the net."
"We publish 1,500 academic books a year and take every effort to ensure this sort of thing does not happen," he said.
But the authors dispute the Cambridge claim of sloppy editing and Mahfouz's charge of libel, saying they mentioned the Saudi sheikh only 13 times in their book and they in no way labeled him a terrorist.
"In the United States, he doesn't have a case. But in England all you have to do is file a case. Then the defendant has to prove what he or she writes is true, and not done with malice," she said.
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