Sunday Telegraph pays damages to mosque chief over Corbyn article

Story falsely portrayed Mohammed Kozbar as supporter of violent extremism in attempt to criticise Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn

The Sunday Telegraph has paid “substantial damages” to the general secretary of Finsbury Park mosque after it falsely portrayed him as a supporter of violent lslamist extremism as part of a botched attempt to criticise the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn.

In March 2016 the newspaper published an article headlined: “Corbyn and the mosque leader who blames the UK for Isil.” The story tried to connect the Labour leader to extremist views allegedly held by Mohammed Kozbar, who runs the mosque in Corbyn’s Islington North constituency and is also vice-chair of the Muslim Association of Britain.

Kozbar successfully argued that the article was defamatory and the Sunday Telegraph has now removed the article from its website, published a ruling accepting the article was defamatory, and paid damages understood to be in the region of £30,000 to settle the case. This does not include the newspaper’s costs.

“It was not just myself who was the target of this article, it was Jeremy Corbyn,” said Kozbar after the verdict. “The aim was to damage the reputation of Jeremy and make his progress with the Labour party more difficult.”

The piece, by the journalist Andrew Gilligan, claimed the mosque administrator supported the use of violence in the Israel-Palestine conflict and blamed the UK government for the rise of Islamic State.
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It appeared alongside a picture of Corbyn shaking hands with Kozbar, detailed regular meetings between the two men, and quoted the Labour leader as calling the mosque leader “fantastic”.

Finsbury Park mosque became infamous for hosting the radical preacher Abu Hamza before it was shut down by the authorities in 2003 over an alleged plot to produce the poison ricin.

Kozbar says he has since fought hard to rebuild the mosque’s reputation and standing in the community and he was forced to fight the case against the Sunday Telegraph in order to take a stand against “Islamophopic media coverage”. He insisted the article was “not just an attack on me but also my faith community”.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/may/09/sunday-telegraph-pays-substantial-damages-to-london-mosque-chief?CMP=share_btn_tw

Hmmm. The unreliable and untrustworthy Andrew Gilligan.
Resigned after his  lies after the Leverson enquiry.
And lost libel cases follow him around like a swarm of locusts.
Gutter journalist writing for a gutter broadsheet.

So to sum up, Kozbar does blame Britian for ISIL, Kozbar does support violence in the Arab/Israeli conflict (which includes terrorism surely) and he and Jeremy Corbyn are definately known to each other?.

Vintage wrote:So to sum up, Kozbar does blame Britian for ISIL, Kozbar does support violence in the Arab/Israeli conflict (which includes terrorism surely) and he and Jeremy Corbyn are definately known to each other?.

To sum up, that's why the Telegraph had to pay damages, because in saying so it was libelling him. Perhaps you would like to pay damages too? And why the fuck shouldn't they know one another, Jeremy is in contact with people of every faith in his area. Are you always this much of a fool?

Once again Nicko proves he is brain dead.

sassy wrote:

Vintage wrote:So to sum up, Kozbar does blame Britian for ISIL, Kozbar does support violence in the Arab/Israeli conflict (which includes terrorism surely) and he and Jeremy Corbyn are definately known to each other?.

To sum up, that's why the Telegraph had to pay damages, because in saying so it was libelling him.   Perhaps you would like to pay damages too?   And why the fuck shouldn't they know one another, Jeremy is in contact with people of every faith in his area.   Are you always this much of a fool?

No problem if he knows him but they are hardly telling lies if he does, nor lying about the other bloke's support for violence and blaming Britain for ISIL are they.

sassy wrote:Once again Nicko proves he is brain dead.

I think one of the bullets he aimed at Vietnamese kids ricocheted and him him in the head.

Vintage wrote:

sassy wrote:


To sum up, that's why the Telegraph had to pay damages, because in saying so it was libelling him.   Perhaps you would like to pay damages too?   And why the fuck shouldn't they know one another, Jeremy is in contact with people of every faith in his area.   Are you always this much of a fool?

No problem if he knows him but they are hardly telling lies if he does, nor lying about the other bloke's support for violence and blaming Britain for ISIL are they.

Jeez Louise, were you born that dense or do you work at it?

Why on earth do you think the Telegraph had to pay out? Because what they (and NOW YOU, YOU MUPPET) WERE TELLING LIES!!!!! Good grief, how did you get so stupid!

Angry Andy wrote:

sassy wrote:Once again Nicko proves he is brain dead.

I think one of the bullets he aimed at Vietnamese kids ricocheted and him him in the head.

You truly are a nasty little man.

HA.........
Have a while in the basement for that TOTALLY unnecessary and completely reprehensible post.

I didn’t know the Finsbury Park Mosque was good at humour. Oh my, it is, and how.

The Times has reported that one of the mosque’s trustees, Mohammed Sawalha, is a ruling member of Hamas. ITIC has much more.

Oh, say it ain’t so. Voila! From The Independent:

Asked how Mr Sawalha’s position in Hamas squared with Finsbury Park Mosque’s values, a spokesperson said: “We were not aware about this news till recently made public in [The Times].

“We are looking at the situation and the mosque will be issuing a statement in the next couple of days.

“We would like to confirm that the mosque has no relationship with Hamas.”

Perhaps the mosque could “look at the situation” by going back over a decade to a BBC Panorama report which called Mr Sawalha a “fugitive Hamas commander”. Yes, he has been it at for that long. All the way back to the 1990s, in fact, when he settled in this country.
The mosque may also wish to consult its leader Mohammed Kozbar. 

Here he is with Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.


And here Kozbar grins with the notorious Hamas hardliner Mahmoud al-Zahar (centre). The man next to Kozbar is Islam Channel owner Mohamed Ali Harrath. Just to add some “awareness”, you know.


Oh look, here is Mr Kozbar with Messrs Sawalha and Haniyeh! That should be helpful, shouldn’t it.


The picture above was taken during an Interpal “Miles of Smiles” convoy to Gaza. Interpal is a registered British charity dedicated to serving Hamas.

Let’s add a few more photos which might assist the mosque.
Meeting the next jihad generation with Haniyeh, for example.


Here is Sawalha with Ahmed Bahar of Hamas (centre). The man on the left is his fellow Hamas UK operative Zaher Birawi. Second from left is Kevin Ovenden, at the time a sad minion of George Galloway in the Viva Palestina Hamas support operation. This photo was taken in Gaza during one of the Viva Palestina convoys.


Here’s another Viva Palestina scene from Syria, in much better days for the brutal dictatorship. The man at the microphone is Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzook. Sawalha is at the left end of the table.


Here Mr Sawalha joins Zaher Birawi, Bulent Yildirim, who is the head of the Turkish Islamist charity IHH, and hate preacher Raed Salah on the deck of the Mavi Marmara in Istanbul. The Gaza flotilla was about to set sail. Sawalha was a key player in that Hamas International operation.


I trust I have been of some assistance to the mosque. If I can provide any further help, I would be delighted to do so.


http://hurryupharry.org/2017/11/07/the-finsbury-park-mosque-and-hamas-a-cracking-joke/

sassy wrote:

Vintage wrote:


No problem if he knows him but they are hardly telling lies if he does, nor lying about the other bloke's support for violence and blaming Britain for ISIL are they.

Jeez Louise, were you born that dense or do you work at it?

Why on earth do you think the Telegraph had to pay out?   Because what they (and NOW YOU, YOU MUPPET) WERE TELLING LIES!!!!!   Good grief, how did you get so stupid!

I work hard at it. Why would someone outright lie with absolutely no foundation, knowing they can be taken to court then end up paying damages.

Vintage wrote:

sassy wrote:


Jeez Louise, were you born that dense or do you work at it?

Why on earth do you think the Telegraph had to pay out?   Because what they (and NOW YOU, YOU MUPPET) WERE TELLING LIES!!!!!   Good grief, how did you get so stupid!

I work hard at it. Why would someone outright lie with absolutely no foundation, knowing they can be taken to court then end up paying damages.

OMGG! Ask the Daily Telegraph, cos that's why they have just had to pay out all that money. PS, most of us know why, they don't mind paying out as long as they get stupid people to believe it, because 9 times out of 10, said stupid people don't notice the retraction.

Syl wrote:You truly are a nasty little man.

Lord Foul wrote:HA.........
Have a while in the basement for that TOTALLY unnecessary and completely reprehensible post.

Syl's in the basement? For how long?

Original Quill wrote:

Syl wrote:You truly are a nasty little man.

Lord Foul wrote:HA.........
Have a while in the basement for that TOTALLY unnecessary and completely reprehensible post.

Syl's in the basement?  For how long?

HA

Handy Andy

Low Lawfare
Using lawfare to silence critics is a very low tactic. It can also be effective. A media outlet facing a defamation claim may simply settle to avoid a costly court process, even if the story in question is accurate and fair.

This appears to be just what happened last week in the case of the Telegraph Media Group and Mohammed Kozbar, the chairman of the Finsbury Park Mosque.

Kozbar claimed an article published in the Sunday Telegraph in 2016 was defamatory. The newspaper rejected the claims. It remained somewhat defiant to the end, as can be seen in last week’s court statement:

The Defendant’s newspaper and website still refuse to acknowledge that there is no truth in these allegations. The Defendant has also refused to join in the reading of this statement, and has denied that my client is even entitled to read a statement which vindicates him of grave and untrue allegations that it has made against him. It has elected however not to oppose the reading of this statement.

But the low blow has been landed. The Telegraph Media Group gave up the full court fight, agreed to pay Mr Kozbar £30,000 in damages, and took the article down from its website (you can still read it in this preliminary judgment).

This contrasts with the determination shown by the think tank Policy Exchange in 2010. It too faced vexatious lawfare threats from the mosque. It fought back and won. This blog has been targeted too. We shook them off.

Mr Kozbar’s own statement covers the central elements of the latest case:

In March 2016 I was falsely portrayed by this newspaper as an individual who supported the use of violence in the Israel-Palestine conflict. This was however not just an attack on me but also my faith community. I was also falsely described as someone who blamed the UK for ISIL. The truth is that I abhor and condemn the use of violence in any situation.

Let’s take a look at some of Mr Kozbar’s claims.

http://hurryupharry.org/2018/05/13/mohammed-kozbar-of-the-finsbury-park-mosque-and-lawfare-silencing/

More to read on the link