Libel Tourism - Rich Saudis Sue for Libel

A group of wealthy Saudi businessmen have opened up a new front in the terror wars. Confronted with inquiries into their alleged ties to the financing of Islamic terror groups, they have launched an ambitious campaign to clear their names by filing defamation suits in the British courts.

IN A GROWING phenomenon that lawyers have dubbed “libel tourism,” the Saudis are seeking to invoke Britain’s plaintiff-friendly libel laws to silence critics in the United States and in the international community.
The legal actions come at a time when American lawyers for the families of September 11 victims are aggressively pursuing a $1 trillion lawsuit in the United States that accuses dozens of Saudi royal princes and wealthy businessmen of providing funding that led to the terror attacks. By targeting U.S. media organizations and others in the British courts, some of the Saudis may hope to shift the focus and win judgments elsewhere.
The opening salvo in this Saudi counteroffensive may start as early as this December when The Wall Street Journal goes to trial in a libel action filed against it by two members of the Jeddah-based Jameel family, which operates the largest independent Toyota dealership in the world.

http://msnbc.com/news/983793.asp?0cl=c1

Can Americans sue Bush for the same principle?

At least the oily parts.

Check out the petrodollar smirk on Smirk...



Check out the conveniently overlapping, rich history of the House of Saud and the House of Bush:

The Bush-bin Laden Connection

EXCERPT...

Jihad

The Wahhabi Taliban in Afghanistan had the blessings of the Saudi royal family and of The Big Three--the bin Laden family, the al Ahmoudi family, and the Mahfouz family--the richest clans in that medieval kingdom. (A C.I.A. official testified to Congress that Khalid bin Mahfouz is bin Laden’s brother-in-law). The desert oligarchs profited from world-wide investments as well as sleazy banking schemes such as the infamous Bank of Credit and Commerce International.

Salem bin Laden, Osama’s brother, has conducted all his American affairs through James Bath, a Houston crony of the Bush family. Bath’s former business partner Bill White testified in court that Bath had been a liaison for the C.I.A. In 1979 Bath invested $50,000 in Arbusto, George W. Bush’s first business venture. Rumor had it that Bath was acting as Salem bin Laden’s representative. "In conflicting statements, Bush at first denied ever knowing Bath, then acknowledged his stake in Arbusto and that he was aware Bath represented Saudi interests." (4)

In addition to doing aviation business with Saudi sheiks, Bath was part owner of a Houston bank whose chief stockholder was Ghaith Pharaon, who represented the Bank of Commerce and Credit International (BCCI), a criminal global bank with branches in 73 countries. BCCI proceeded to defraud depositors of $10 billion during the ‘80s, while providing a money laundry conduit for the Medellin drug cartel, Asia’s major heroin cartel, Manuel Noriega, Saddam Hussein, the C.I.A., and Islamist terrorist organizations worldwide. (5)

Big Three wheeler-dealer Khalid bin Mahfouz, one of the largest stockholders in the criminal bank, was indicted when the massive BCCI banking scandal blew apart in the early 1990s. The Saudi royal family placed him under house arrest after discovering that Mahfouz had used the royal bank to channel millions of dollars through fake charities into bin Laden’s organizations, but Mahfouz was not so much punished as inconvenienced. (6)

CONTINUED...

http://www.hermes-press.com/BushSaud.htm