Law spares Galloway big bother of £2m bill

Published on Wednesday 25 January 2006 12:07

CONTROVERSIAL MP George Galloway was spared a huge bill today after the Daily Telegraph newspaper lost its appeal over a libel action.

If the newspaper had won, the Respect MP would have faced a legal bill of around 2 million.

Mr Galloway, who is up for eviction this week in the reality TV show Big Brother, has already admitted the sum would have forced him into bankruptcy.

The Telegraph lost the original libel action brought by Mr Galloway over a report which alleged that he had received 375,000 a year in payoffs from the Iraqi government.

The Master of the Rolls, Sir Anthony Clarke, together with Lords Justice Chadwick and Laws, all dismissed the newspaper's appeal. The judges also agreed that the 150,000 damages awarded to the MP by Mr Justice Eady in December 2004 should not be reduced.

They said: "Given the seriousness of the key allegation, that Mr Galloway had taken money from Iraq for personal profit, we see no basis upon which this court could interfere with the amount of damages."

James Price QC, representing the newspaper, had told the judges at the hearing last year that it was in the public interest to publish documents found by its foreign correspondent David Blair inside the Iraqi foreign ministry after the fall of Baghdad.

The newspaper was then entitled to comment and offer its own interpretation that the documents appeared to show he received money from Saddam Hussein's regime, said Mr Price.

Mr Galloway, who was the Labour MP for Glasgow Kelvin at the time, has always denied ever seeking or receiving money from Saddam Hussein. He was expelled from the Labour Party for comments about the Iraq war and went on to win the Bethnal Green and Bow seat as leader of the anti-war Respect party, ousting Labour's Oona King.

The judges refused the newspaper permission to appeal to the House of Lords, although it can petition the Lords direct.

Mr Price, for the Telegraph, said the case was "right at the leading edge" of the debate over freedom of expression.

He said the April 2003 story was covered by qualified privilege because it was "of truly global significance". It was in the public interest whether the documents were true or false, he said.

But the argument that the MP received money from Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq was covered by qualified privilege, which allows newspapers to print certain stories in the public interest as long as they are fair and accurate, was ultimately dismissed.

Richard Rampton QC, for Mr Galloway, said permission should be refused by the appeal judges as theirs was "one of the most unequivocally emphatic judgements" in this field of the law that he had ever come across.

The judges ordered the Telegraph to pay Mr Galloway's costs of the appeal, estimated at around 140,000, and to make an interim payment in respect of that sum of 60,000. The newspaper will also have to pay the 150,000 damages and 200,000 as an interim payment on account of Mr Galloway's costs of the action.

There was no immediate reaction from the newspaper and Mr Galloway's solicitors are unable to communicate with him until he emerges from the Big Brother house.