The businessman who founded the Islam Channel has won £140,000 libel damages over an article that said he was a terrorist. Mohamed Ali Harrath brought a High Court case in London over an article posted on a website operated by Stand For Peace Ltd, which is said to provide a platform for rational discussion of "the topics that drive the Muslim and Jewish community apart". Mr Harrath was politically active in Tunisia before his arrival in the UK in 1995 where he was recognised as a refugee and granted indefinite leave to remain. He sued the company and a director Samuel Westrop over an October 2014 article, headed "Subway withdraws sponsorship of extremist charity fundraiser", which remained until March last year. It explained that a fundraising event was to be held in Manchester under the title Reviving Gaza, which had initially been sponsored by the fast food chain, but it had withdrawn its support once it became aware of "extremist links". The article went on to identify some of those supposedly extremist links, referring specifically to the Islam Channel, a TV channel specialising in issues relating to Islam, and claiming that "its CEO, Mohammed Ali Harrath, is a convicted terrorist". After a judge ordered last year that judgment be entered for Mr Harrath, Sir David Eady assessed the amount of compensation. On Thursday, he said there could be no doubt that the words meant that Mr Harrath was guilty of terrorism. He said: "I can safely proceed, in the light of the evidence before me, on the basis that the claimant is not a terrorist. "There is thus no doubt as to his entitlement to compensation for the injury to his reputation, for embarrassment and hurt feelings and for the purpose of vindicating his reputation." He added that an allegation of terrorism was likely to attract in most cases an award towards the upper end of the scale, since few if any allegations could be more serious. "Here, as almost always, they carry the imputation that the person so accused is prepared to take part in or to encourage indiscriminate murder." He said that the appropriate award was £140,000.
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