Fighting jihad by following the money

Laina Farhat-Holzman in the Santa Cruz Sentinel on October 21, 2007

Almost immediately after the attack of Sept. 11, 2001, the United States began to "follow the money" — to see who was financing jihad and how it was being transmitted. This started a long process that is still ongoing, but it has encountered many roadblocks.

One of these roadblocks is a Saudi billionaire, Khalid bin Mahfouz, who has either sued or threatened to sue 36 writers who have fingered him as a major financier of Islamist mayhem. He has taken them on in British courts because England has libel laws that favor individual rights over public rights. Mahfouz has been able to spike the sale and availability of a number of books that would otherwise expose the charitable foundations and his own Saudi bank supporting al-Qaida and other terrorist organizations. When he sues an author, the British courts demand punitive damages, an apology, and the destruction of all copies of the books.

This apparently happened to J. Millard Burr and Robert O. Collins, who wrote a scholarly compendium, "Alms for Jihad: Charity and Terrorism in the Islamic World," published by Cambridge University Press in 2006. They yielded to the court and most copies of their book vanished. Amazon and Barnes & Noble both list the book as "unavailable" I started last summer to try to track down a copy of it in local bookstores and then through a library search, and finally received a library copy from my local university.

It seems that for months, copies were vanishing from university stacks or were checked out and "lost," but with diligence there are copies around that were bought before the British courts spiked them. But persistence is needed.

This particular book [out of 36 or so others on this topic, also difficult to find], is a roadmap of Muslim charities, who runs them and where the money is going. It names names and tracks this money to Afghanistan, Sudan, the Balkans, Russia and Central Asia, Southeast Asia, the Holy Land, Europe [for Islamization] and North America. The book is scholarly, detailed, and by no means sensational. It should be available in more than the few copies kicking around.

Happily, not every author is as passive about fighting back as Californians Burr and Collins. One woman, Rachel Ehrenfeld, author of "Funding Evil: How Terrorism is Financed and How to Stop It," ran into the same roadblock: a law suit by Khalid bin Mahfouz. She lost in the British courts, which fined her $225,900 in damages and ordered her to publicly apologize and destroy the book. She refused to acknowledge the jurisdiction of the British court or its ruling and took it to an American court, knowing that she could defend her book's content against a Mahfouz suit.

She won the suit that Mahfouz's English default judgment is unenforceable in the U.S. because it violates her First Amendment rights. As a result, the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously declared that her case is ripe for hearing in a U.S. court, noting that the case has implications for all U.S. authors and publishers whose First Amendment rights are threatened by foreign libel rulings. The oral arguments on jurisdiction will be held on Nov. 15.

This is an issue that ought to be protected by congressional reinforcement of the First Amendment with a new statute prohibiting enforcement of foreign libel judgments in the U.S., whenever American authors and publishers report responsibility on terror-related and other national security threats. As Ehrenfeld notes: "We are at war with enormously wealthy and determined enemies. We should prevent their use of their tremendous wealth to deprive American writers from exposing actions that threaten our safety and freedoms"

I would also hope that American publishers and newspapers would show a little more backbone than they have to date, apparently fearing an expensive law suit in London. Until the British stop being so soft-headed in the face of Saudi money, the United States should champion such authors' rights to be heard. In our courts, they can prove that their claims are not libelous and their books should be available globally.

Laina Farhat-Holzman is a historian, lecturer and author.
You may contact her at Lfarhat102@aol.com or www.globalthink.net.

Chilling Free Speech

By Ilan Weinglass in the Washington Times 10/22/2007

The U.S. media has started to notice Saudi billionaire Khalid bin Mahfouz's use of British libel laws to silence allegations that he funded al Qaeda. Even the venerable New York Times has featured an essay on the subject, plus an Op-Ed urging Congress to prevent U.S. courts from enforcing foreign libel judgments. While this would be a worthwhile achievement, most commentators have missed the point that we may have already lost the battle. More than 30 publications and authors have already given in to the billionaire. Since September 11, Mr. Mahfouz has exploited the British legal system, where libel laws favor the plaintiff, to systematically sue anyone alleging that he financed terrorism. He has also used the threat of such suits to intimidate his critics.

A number of leading American publications including The Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times and USA Today have publicly retracted allegations made about Mr. Mahfouzon their pages. Most recently, Mr. Mahfouz threatened to sue Cambridge University Press (CUP) for publishing "Alms for Jihad." Overlooking its responsibility and academic integrity, CUP decided to avoid huge legal expenses. It apologized and pulped the book. While criticizing CUP for its capitulation, the American media failed to notice that the authors of the book were not even threatened. Why not? Because of what civil-rights lawyer Harvey Silverglate calls "one of the most important First Amendment cases in the past 25 years," now pending before the New York Court of Appeals.

This case involves Rachel Ehrenfeld, author of "Funding Evil: How Terrorism is Financed and How to Stop It." Miss Ehrenfeld was also subject to a lawsuit by Mr. Mahfouz. But unlike the others, she refuses to acknowledge the jurisdiction of a British court over a book published in New York, and she asked a U.S. court to declare the British judgment unenforceable in the United States. After two years, a U.S. appeals court ruled that the New York Court of Appeals must hear her case. This is already a small victory for free speech, as Mr. Mahfouz will have to make his case in an American court.

This small victory pales next to some larger defeats, however. Mr. Mahfouz's Web site shows dozens of otherwise serious, careful scholars making abject apologies to the Saudi. A typical example, from a leading scholar of Al Qaeda: "I withdraw any allegations contained in the Book that you were a financial mainstay of Al Qaeda... I am happy to accept that you abhor terrorism and that you had no part or knowledge of any alleged transfer of funds to support terrorism."

Looking closely through publicly available scholarship on Mr. Mahfouz, it is doubtful one will find any terror-finance allegations that have not been explicitly retracted in such a manner, with the exception of those made by Miss Ehrenfeld. While all claims must be subject to rigorous investigation, this is disturbing, since the Treasury Department designated Yassin al-Qadi, the director of Mr. Mahfouz's "charitable" foundation, as a terrorist. Moreover, Treasury determined that a Mahfouz-owned bank sent $3 million to the same foundation,plus other "charities that serve as a front for bin Laden." We have lost valuable time in the battle against terror financiers regardless of the outcome of the Ehrenfeld case. As scholar Matthew Levitt writes, "such suits threaten to have a chilling effect on scholars conducting serious, careful, and peer-reviewed research into critical and sometimes contentious policy debates." While Mr. Levitt, who himself faced a libel suit in the United States that was rightly dismissed under U.S. libel laws, is correct in pointing out the "chilling effect" of such suits, the cold fact is that much damage has already been done.

Ultimately, we will never know how much damage The Washington Post or Wall Street Journal could have prevented if they stood up for their First Amendment rights. Whatever the outcome of Miss Ehrenfeld's case, it is a black mark on these publications that they chose the easy way out, while a lone brave woman is the only thing preventing a total blackout on research into a possible funding source of al Qaeda.

Ilan Weinglass is a New York-based consultant on terror
financing issues and editor of the Terror Finance Blog.
He was a research assistant for Funding Evil.

Attempted censorship increases interest in terrorism book

In late July, Cambridge University Press settled a U.K. libel suit brought against it by Saudi businessman, Sheikh Khalid Bin Mahfouz. Bin Mahfouz had disputed statements in Cambridge's 2006 book, Alms for Jihad: Charity and Terrorism in the Islamic World, by J. Millard Burr and Robert O. Collins, that he had been involved in financing terrorist groups.[3] A press release by Bin Mahfouz's lawyers at Kendall Freeman[4] announced that, in addition to publishing a comprehensive apology, paying substantial damages, and pulping unsold copies of the book, "Cambridge University Press is taking the almost unprecedented step of . writing to over 200 libraries worldwide which carry the book telling them of the settlement and asking them to withdraw the book from their shelves."

Two weeks later, Cambridge Intellectual Property Director Kevin Taylor followed through with a letter to libraries known to hold the book, asking them to remove it.[5] Cambridge, apparently recognizing that librarians would almost certainly not comply, included an errata sheet with the letter. If libraries would not remove the book, Cambridge insisted that they insert the errata page. Alms for Jihad quickly disappeared from U.S. bookstores and online suppliers.[6] What about the shelves of U.S. libraries?

Cambridge guessed right-librarians did not remove the book. To the contrary, they seem to have gone out and bought up the last elusive copies. More copies of Alms for Jihad were on library shelves in mid-September than before Taylor sent his August 15 letter.[7] U.S. holding libraries range from Harvard and Yale to Dearborn's Henry Ford Community College.

The American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom issued a statement encouraging librarians to stand firm. "Libraries," ALA noted, "are considered to hold title to the individual copy or copies, and it is the library's property to do with it as it pleases. Given the intense interest in the book, and the desire of readers to learn about the controversy first hand, we recommend that U.S. libraries keep the book available for their users."[8]

A quick poll of library directors at Michigan academic libraries brought similar responses: We paid for the book, we own it, we're going to keep it. "The book itself," one director noted, "has now become part of the conversation." A commentary had become an artifact. These librarians were affirming the profession's commitment to preserving and disseminating the "Great Conversation" of recorded knowledge. Academic libraries don't adjudicate debates, but on their shelves preserve and foster them....

Librarians have been taking steps to protect this suddenly rare book. Charles Hamaker, Associate University Librarian at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte, reports that "my library, like many academic libraries, has placed Alms for Jihad in a reserve collection to keep it available for current and future users." The University of Michigan recalled its two circulating copies and put both on reserve-housed, as an added precaution, in separate locations. A search of their online catalogs reveals that Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, as well as the University of California-San Diego, have also placed their copies on reserve. Ohio State and Cornell put Alms for Jihad in non-circulating rare book collections. Prudent moves: the $30 book now has a market value of more than $500.[11]

Jonathan Rodgers, head of the University Michigan's Near East collections, reports that the message traffic among Middle East Librarians Association members has been uniformly supportive of protecting copies and resisting any request to return the book. Riedlmayer of Harvard and others believe it would be reasonable to insert the errata page. But the consensus view among U.S. librarians is to resist any request to remove Alms for Jihad from library shelves.

No librarians interviewed objected to Cambridge University's settling the lawsuit. Some accepted the firm's explanation[12] that the book contained erroneous statements which defamed Bin Mahfouz. Most understood Cambridge's reluctance to spend money on a suit it was likely to lose. Cambridge, too, recently announced plans to expand sales in the Gulf region and perhaps feared that any defense of the book would alienate potential customers.[13]

But librarians do object to the terms of the settlement. Cambridge University Press is the self-described "oldest printer and publisher in the world."[14] Yet this distinguished firm agreed to a virtually unprecedented insult to free inquiry: a request to academic libraries to be complicit in the suppression of a published work. Some wondered if Cambridge's request might portend more aggressive attempts at redress in future cases. In previous suits no settlement had included an attempt to suppress library copies. Some also worried about the potential chilling effect of these cases on lesser publishers who may become reluctant to accept manuscripts on terrorism issues.[15]

While questions are regularly raised about books in school or public libraries, challenges to books in academic collections are rare. A request to remove a book initiated by its publisher is virtually unheard of.[16] ....

If the Cambridge edition of Alms for Jihad has now become rare, its contents will not be so for long. Authors Burr and Collins have re-secured their copyright to the manuscript,[24] and several U.S. publishers are interested. Soon an even wider circle of readers will have the opportunity to evaluate the authors' arguments for themselves-without having to travel to New Zealand.

Published on Political Correctness Watch, Oct 10, 2007

A SLAPP Against Freedom

by Judith Miller, City Journal, Autumn 2007

Attorneys have an effective new way to defeat Islamic groups' libel suits.

Nothing gets a journalist's attention like a subpoena. While authoritarian regimes silence critics by murdering or jailing them, journalists (and other critics) in the United States face gentler, but still effective, intimidation: libel lawsuits. Over the last few years, Islamists have tried silencing reporters, scholars, and citizens by suing them for defamation, often successfully. But recent legal cases in California, Massachusetts, and Minnesota suggest that the tactic may finally be backfiring, at least in the United States, if not in Britain, where libel laws overwhelmingly favor plaintiffs. The American lawsuits' outcomes—poorly covered by the media—represent victories for the free expression and public participation that the First Amendment guarantees.

The latest victory came in August, when an Islamic charity, KinderUSA, and its board chairman, Laila Al-Marayati, dropped the libel suit they had filed in April in California state court against former Treasury Department official Matthew Levitt, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (which now employs him), and Yale University Press. In 2006, Yale published Levitt's book on Hamas, which Washington says supports terrorism. Levitt never mentioned Al-Marayati in his book, but he did assert that KinderUSA, founded to raise money for Palestinian children, had ties to terrorist groups.

Al-Marayati and KinderUSA charged that Levitt had made "false and damaging" charges that caused "irreparable harm to its reputation," and they sought at least $500,000 in damages, a public retraction, and a halt to the book's distribution. But Levitt and his codefendants stood by his claims. In June, they filed a motion against the charity and its chairman, seeking to quash the libel suit and demanding that the plaintiffs pay all legal fees. They cited a California law that bans "SLAPP"—or "strategic litigation against public participation"—suits, which aim not at winning in court, but at intimidating into silence a group or a publication raising issues of public concern. "California enacted anti-SLAPP legislation to get rid of inappropriate lawsuits like this one," they wrote in a 15-page brief.

Less than six weeks later, Al-Marayati and KinderUSA dropped the suit. Todd Gallinger, who represented the plaintiffs, insisted that the charity had sued not to intimidate or silence Levitt, but rather to force him to correct charges that it still considers libelous. "They were trying to suppress the charity's legitimate activities," he said. But KinderUSA underestimated the costs involved, he acknowledged, and the defendants' anti-SLAPP motion was a factor in its decision to drop the suit.

"Anti-SLAPP laws are a very powerful tool," agreed Roger Myers, an attorney who specializes in using the law to defend journalists in libel claims. "There has been a fairly dramatic decline in the number of libel cases being filed here in California."

Levitt's case isn't unique. Last May, the Islamic Society of Boston dropped its suit against the Boston Herald, a local Fox news channel, journalist Steven Emerson, and 14 others. The Society had accused the defendants of libel and of infringing its civil rights by claiming that it had funded terrorist organizations, received money from Saudi Arabia, and bought land for a mosque below market value from the City of Boston.

Though Massachusetts's anti-SLAPP law does not cover media firms, ten of the non-media defendants filed a motion to quash the Society's suit. When a state judge rejected the motion, a legal discovery process got under way while the defendants appealed. Bank records and other documents revealed that, contrary to its claims, the Society had raised over $7 million from Saudi and other Middle Eastern sources and had funded two groups that the Bush administration has designated terrorist entities: the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development and the Benevolence International Foundation. Records also showed that Society directors had deleted all e-mails about the Society's land purchase. Finally, discovery revealed that the deputy director of the Boston city agency in charge of negotiating the land deal not only was a Society member whom it had paid to raise money in the Middle East, but also secretly advised the group about obtaining the land cheaply—a clear conflict of interest.

On May 29, soon after the state appellate court heard arguments on the anti-SLAPP appeal, the Society abandoned the suit. Though its lawyers did not respond to requests for comment and its website tried to put a good face on the surrender, Jeff Robbins, who represented several defendants in the complex lawsuit, expressed their belief that the Society had caved, fearing the prospect of paying what could have been millions of dollars in court and legal fees. "The anti-SLAPP motion clearly played a role," said Robbins, who represented two clients for free because First Amendment issues were involved. Another factor, he said, was the Society's fear that the court would order it to answer questions under oath and release information that it had tried to keep secret, such as the names of its donors. The case shows that while anti-SLAPP legislation makes it somewhat easier, cheaper, and faster for those accused of libel to fight back, "it doesn't solve the problem entirely," said Jeff Hermes, a lawyer for the Boston Herald. "Media companies are not covered by our state's statute, and defendants in such cases still need to prepare a full defense."

In Minnesota, a third lawsuit didn't involve journalists or SLAPP statutes, but it did threaten citizens' right to petition or warn the government on public safety issues. It also prompted Congress to protect people retroactively who report suspicious behavior. The defendants were anonymous citizens whose complaints about what they considered suspicious behavior by six Muslim imams on a flight in late 2006 led US Airways to remove the clerics from the plane. In a 2007 federal lawsuit claiming discrimination, the imams sued the airline, the Minneapolis airport, and several of the passengers who had complained.

But in August 2007, the "flying imams" dropped all claims against the passengers after Congress approved legislation to protect passengers from retaliatory lawsuits for reporting potentially terror-related activity. Under the measure, as in an anti-SLAPP law, if the plaintiffs cannot prove that a passenger lied in his complaint to the government, they can be held responsible for all court and legal fees. "The imams saw the handwriting on the wall," said Representative Peter King, the New York Republican who promoted the bill. Gerry Nolting, a lawyer who represented a passenger, also without a fee, said that the imams might never have filed their suit if Minnesota had on its books an anti-SLAPP law like California's.

However intimidating and expensive defamation lawsuits remain in the United States, the challenge is far greater in Britain, where journalists must prove that their allegations are true. Rachel Ehrenfeld, a New York–based terrorism researcher and the author of Funding Evil, is among more than 30 writers and publishers whom Saudi billionaire Khalid bin Mahfouz sued for libel in England for accusing him of ties to terrorist groups, a charge he denies. But rather than give him the apology, retraction, and $225,000 in fees that a British court ordered, Ehrenfeld, whose book was never even published in England, fought back. In 2004, she countersued bin Mahfouz in New York, asking the federal court here to declare the judgment against her unenforceable in America and contrary to the First Amendment protections that Americans enjoy.

In June, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, overturning a lower court ruling, asked the state's highest court to determine whether bin Mahfouz should be subject to New York jurisdiction. If it rules affirmatively, Ehrenfeld would be able to obtain considerable information about his finances in preparing for a trial. If he then failed to cooperate, he might have difficulty doing business in America.

Ehrenfeld's effort comes none too soon, says Andrew McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor, for bin Mahfouz no longer needs to sue to intimidate his critics. After he merely threatened Cambridge University Press with a libel suit this spring, the prestigious publisher agreed to apologize on its website, pay his legal costs and unspecified damages, and stop distributing Alms for Jihad, a book written by J. Millard Burr, a former State Department analyst and relief coordinator, and Robert O. Collins, a former University of California history professor, which outlines bin Mahfouz's alleged financial support for terrorism. Cambridge also asked libraries to remove the book from their shelves. On its website, Cambridge states that it took such steps because "under English libel laws, we simply did not have a defensible case." A court victory for Rachel Ehrenfeld, and more anti-SLAPP statutes—only some 20 states have enacted such laws—would help curb the pernicious "libel tourism" so inimical to the free flow of information on which an informed citizenry and effective counterterrorism depend.

Judith Miller, a contributing editor of City Journal, is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist who writes about national security issues. She has written or coauthored four books, including Germs: Biological Weapons and America's Secret War.

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Libel Without Borders

When it first appeared in 2006, "Alms for Jihad," an academic book on Islamic charitable networks by two American scholars, drew scant attention. It sold a modest 1,500 copies and received few reviews. But in recent weeks the book has become an international cause célèbre, after Cambridge University Press agreed to pulp all unsold copies in a defamation settlement.

Last spring, Sheikh Khalid bin Mahfouz, a powerful Saudi businessman and banker to the Saudi royal family who is based in Jeddah, sued the publisher over the book's depiction of his family as financiers of terrorism. In English libel law, the burden of proof falls on the defendant, and bin Mahfouz had won judgments in several other cases. Rather than challenging the accusations, the press agreed in August to destroy the remaining 2,300 warehoused copies of the book. It also paid bin Mahfouz an undisclosed sum for damages and legal fees, issued a written apology and, to the anger of librarians, asked libraries that refused to insert an errata slip to remove the book from their shelves.

The case is fanning widespread concern that English libel law is stifling writers far beyond the borders of the United Kingdom. Today, any book bought online in England, even one published exclusively in another country, can ostensibly be subject to English libel law. As a result, publishers and booksellers are increasingly concerned about "libel tourism": foreigners suing other foreigners in England or elsewhere, and using those judgments to intimidate authors in other countries, including the United States. Last year, the Association of American Publishers, Amazon.com, the American Society of Newspaper Editors and others filed an amicus brief in New York, arguing that such litigation "constitutes a clear threat to the ability of the U.S. press to vigorously investigate and publish news and information about the most crucial issues before the U.S. public." In early September, Representative Frank R. Wolf, Republican of Virginia, invited one of the co-authors of "Alms for Jihad" to discuss the book in a private meeting with intelligence workers and staffers from the Department of Homeland Security. Cambridge's settlement is "basically a book-burning," Wolf said in a telephone interview. "I think it will have a chilling effect."

Celebrities and other public figures have long used English libel law to their advantage. In 2005, an English court ruled in favor of Roman Polanski in a suit against Vanity Fair. He had accused the magazine of defaming him in an article that quoted Lewis Lapham, the former editor of Harper's, as saying he had seen Polanski make a pass at a model while uttering the name of his wife, Sharon Tate, one week after her murder in 1969. In 2003, the Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky won a libel suit against Forbes magazine, which he said had defamed him by linking him to organized crime. Since Sept. 11, more cases have focused on matters of international security. In 2004, Random House U.K. dropped its plans to publish Craig Unger's best-selling "House of Bush, House of Saud" for fear of libel lawsuits. (It was eventually published by Gibson Square, a small house with few assets to sue over, and became a best seller in Britain as well.)

When it comes to libel tourism, bin Mahfouz is something of a frequent flier; yet since he and his family have business interests, property and friends in England, his lawyer says they have "significant reputations" to protect there. In another closely watched case, he won damages against a New York author, Rachel Ehrenfeld, whose 2003 book "Funding Evil: How Terrorism Is Financed — and How to Stop It" linked bin Mahfouz with Al Qaeda. Although the book wasn't published in Britain, it could be bought there online. In 2004, bin Mahfouz won damages and an apology from Pluto Press and the author Michael Griffin, whose "Reaping the Whirlwind" also said bin Mahfouz had financed Al Qaeda. In addition, bin Mahfouz has won damages from the newspaper The Mail on Sunday and received written apologies from several other authors.

In all those cases, bin Mahfouz said he and his family had never knowingly underwritten terrorism. In each case, defendants have paid settlements before trial. Under English law, bin Mahfouz has never had to appear in open court to disprove the accusations against him. "This guy has run roughshod over publishers and authors," said Judy Platt, director of the Association of American Publishers' Freedom to Read program. "Every time someone says something he doesn't like, he takes them to court."

"Alms for Jihad" was written by two experts on Sudan: J. Millard Burr, a retired State Department officer, and Robert O. Collins, an emeritus history professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara. It follows Saudi money through Islamic charitable organizations in Sudan, Southeast Asia, the Balkans and Chechnya, showing how some of it ended up financing terrorism. Though a tangential figure in the 350-page book, bin Mahfouz objected to 11 passages. He "amounts to nothing more ... than a grand footnote" in a larger story, Collins said.

Another point of contention is bin Mahfouz's role in the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, which the Manhattan district attorney charged in 1992 with bank fraud, bribery, the illegal shipping of arms and other offenses. In the errata slip sent to libraries, Cambridge says that contrary to what was reported in "Alms for Jihad," bin Mahfouz himself "was never alleged to have been involved in embezzlement, money laundering or the various other criminal offenses alleged against the B.C.C.I.," and that he "paid no personal fine." According to the Manhattan district attorney's office, in 1993 bin Mahfouz paid a $225 million settlement for various charges — primarily related to the withdrawal of his investment — as part of the larger B.C.C.I. settlement, though he admitted no wrongdoing.

The Cambridge settlement also involves a document called the "Golden Chain," a list of 20 wealthy Saudi donors, including the bin Mahfouz family, that was found in a 2002 raid on the Sarajevo offices of an Islamic charity. In "Alms for Jihad," the authors say the document was a list of Qaeda financiers, an assertion also made in several other news accounts. Bin Mahfouz's lawyers counter that he himself was never included on the list; that even according to United States prosecutors, the list was of donors to the mujahedeen, not to Al Qaeda; and that the document was deemed inadmissible as evidence in cases in England and America, where judges in both places ruled it was not proof of support for Al Qaeda.
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Note: This essay will appear in the print edition of the Book Review dated October 7, 2007.

In its apology, Cambridge said it accepted "that at no time has any member" of the bin Mahfouz family "contributed to any terrorist organization, nor has the family ever had reason to believe that funds it has given over the years to a wide variety of charities ... have been used other than for the charitable purposes intended."

Kevin Taylor, of Cambridge's legal team, said a challenge to bin Mahfouz's case would have been "absurd, suicidal and not in anyone's interest," since the courts had found some of the same statements defamatory before. Taylor said the press would now be more vigilant in its fact-checking and would consider "toning down statements" so "such actions won't stick, even under English libel law." "Our basic academic principles have not been undermined by this," he said. "It's more about process."

Meanwhile, Rachel Ehrenfeld has refused to acknowledge the English ruling that awarded bin Mahfouz $225,900 in damages and ordered her to apologize and destroy all copies of "Funding Evil." An independent researcher who directs the American Center for Democracy, a group that "monitors and exposes the enemies of freedom," Ehrenfeld said she didn't have the resources to contest the case. Instead, she has asked a federal court in Manhattan to rule that the English libel judgment is unenforceable in New York, on the grounds that it is effectively silencing her in America. In June, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit declared her case "ripe" for hearing. "The issue may implicate the First Amendment rights of many New Yorkers, and thus concerns important public policy of the state," the court wrote.

In a watershed case last fall, England's highest court ruled that The Wall Street Journal's European edition was working "in the public interest" when it reported in 2002 that Saudi Arabia, at the request of the United States, had been monitoring the bank accounts of several prominent businesses to see if they were being used to finance terrorist groups. Previously, even to report that someone was under government investigation was tantamount to defamation. In the ruling, one judge wrote that England needed "more such serious journalism, ... and our defamation law should encourage rather than discourage it."

For their part, Burr and Collins recently reobtained the copyright to "Alms for Jihad" from Cambridge. They're now awaiting word from several American publishers who have expressed interest. If the book is published here, Collins said he would correct two errors: that the bin Mahfouz family intermarried with the bin Laden family, and that bin Mahfouz was chief executive of B.C.C.I., when in fact he was a director. Beyond that, he said, any changes would be up to the publisher. "There are three options," Collins said. To leave the book "as it is"; to "sanitize it"; or to "just delete Mahfouz the 11 times he appears."

Rachel Donadio is a writer and editor at the Book Review.
First published in New York Times