'Brits afraid to publish Craig Unger book': The Guardian

[emad]

Bush, the Saudi billionaire and the Islamists: the story a British firm is afraid to publish

Publication of book cancelled as libel laws blamed for stifling free speech

David Leigh
Wednesday March 31, 2004
The Guardian

A book investigating links between rich Saudis and US politicians has been suppressed by the giant publishing firm Random House because, it says, of growing "libel tourism" by wealthy foreigners, and exorbitant legal "success fees". Libel lawyers are stifling free speech, the deputy chairman of Random House, Simon Master, said yesterday. The UK publication of House of Bush, House of Saud, by the American writer Craig Unger, has been cancelled because Secker and Warburg, a Random House subsidiary, says it can no longer afford such risks.

The book focuses in part on the activities of a Jeddah-based Saudi billionaire, Khalid bin Mahfouz, who has been engaged in a war of words in the US, where there have been public accusations by officials linking him and others to funding received by Osama bin Laden. Unger collates links between Mr Bin Mahfouz and Islamist fundamentalists. But the new dimension of his research is that he also analyses the Texas business links between the Bush circle and the families of Mr Bin Mahfouz and other rich Saudis.

Unger's thesis is that the eagerness of US politicians to tap into Saudi money over the years may have compromised Mr Bush's determination to fight terrorism: "Never before has an American president been so closely tied to a foreign power that harbours and supports our country's mortal enemies." How far Unger's thesis is credible is something that the US reading public will be able to decide for themselves. The book is becoming a bestseller in US election year. In Britain, however, the deputy chairman of Random House denied that the decision to suppress it was "pusillanimity or unnecessary self-censorship".

Simon Masters said UK libel laws were ludicrous and had been made worse by a recent judgment won by a wealthy Saudi wrongly accused of terrorist funding links, in which the defence of public interest had been thrown out. "Forum shopping" by wealthy foreigners attracted to Britain's draconian libel laws was made worse, he said, by "the willingness of some law firms to take cases on a no-win no-fee basis. The firms who take on such clients will if successful, present hugely inflated bills, the costs of which can be awarded against the defendant in addition to any damages".

More:http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/politicsphilosophyandsociety/story/0,6000,1182578,00.html

Sounds like the BFEE asshole Prince Turki, the Saudi ambassador to the UK, has been putting the thumscrews on......