Daily Telegraph owes George Galloway £150,000

Former Labour MP George Galloway has won his libel action against the &to= english.pravda.ru/fun/2001/09/26/16310.html ' target=_blank>Daily Telegraph and been awarded £150,000 in damages. He is also expected to get his costs - the court case is estimated to have cost about £1m. The high court ruled that Telegraph had defamed Mr Galloway when it published a report claiming documents found in Baghdad during the Iraq war last year alleged he was in the pay of Saddam Hussein, informs the Guardian Unlimited. According to Bloomberg, U.K. Member of Parliament &to= engforum.pravda.ru/showthread. php3?threadid=43406&goto=nextnewest ' target=_blank>George Galloway won his libel claim against the Daily Telegraph newspaper, which reported last year that the Scotsman was in the pay of former Iraqi dictator &to= english.pravda.ru/main/2003/01/31/42821.html ' target=_blank>Saddam Hussein. Galloway, 50, had sued the Telegraph at the High Court in London, saying the allegations were ``a dagger, a sword, right through the heart of my political life.'' The newspaper was ordered to pay 150,000 pounds ($291,000). The case pitted the Telegraph, the nation's most-read broadsheet and supporter of Britain's main opposition Conservative party, against a Scottish socialist who swore devotion to the Palestinian and Arab cause in a Dundee bar after a visit to the Middle East in 1977. Judge David Eady told London's High Court Thursday the allegations made against George Galloway by The Daily Telegraph were "seriously defamatory" and awarded the Scottish MP £150,000 ($290,000). The newspaper said the stories published in April 2003 -- one of which called the MP a "traitor" -- were based on documents found in Iraqi government offices after the fall of Saddam. The Telegraph did not try to prove the claims were true, but denied libel, claiming the articles were responsible journalism and in the public interest, tells CNN.

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