The Libel Tourist

The Libel Tourist is a shortform documentary film about how the advantageous litigative environments that exist in certain jurisdictions are used by powerful individuals to suppress unfavorable information about them by bringing forth unjustified libel suits against writers and publishers. The seeking out of such favorable environments, most notably the courts of England and Wales, has been dubbed libel tourism.

The film focuses on the libel suit brought forth in English courts by Saudi Sheikh Khalid bin Mahfouz against writer and terrorism and political corruption expert Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld. Bin Mahfouz claimed that the allegations that Dr. Ehrenfeld made against him in her book Funding Evil were libelous, as he had never knowingly funded terrorism. While Dr. Ehrenfeld never makes any assertions about the degree of bin Mahfouzs cognizance of the alleged funding, she does say that bin Mahfouz founded andor operates a number of bogus front organizations that operate under the guise of charities, but whose actual objectives are frequently the funding and support of terrorist organizations like alQaeda, Hamas, and Hezbollah. Examples of such organizations are the Muwafaq Blessed Relief Foundation, the International Islamic Relief Organization HRO, and the National Commercial Bank NCB. These claims have been bolstered by some degree by the U.S. Treasury Department, who in October 2001, froze the assets of Yasin alQadi, another Saudi who had been hired to run the Muwafaq Foundation charity, who they listed as a supporter of terrorism.The film asserts that because English courts arent bound by a written constitution that protects freedom of expression in contrast to the courts of the United States England has become a haven for those seeking to suppress information via libel lawsuits. This is given as the reason why bin Mahfouz filed his lawsuit in the U.K., rather than in the U.S., where the book was initially published. Ehrenfeld ignored the English courts in an effort to avoid a costly legal battle. ........

Source: Wikipedia