Apology follows settlement in which magazine and contribascii117tor Melanie Phillips agreed to pay Mohammad Sawalha compensation and his legal costs

Gascii117ardian
Josh Halliday

The Spectator and contribascii117tor Melanie Phillips today pascii117blished an online apology to a prominent British Mascii117slim they falsely accascii117sed of antisemitism.

Today s apology, pascii117blished on the Spectator website, follows an oascii117t of coascii117rt settlement in which the magazine and Phillips agreed to pay Mohammad Sawalha 'sascii117bstantial' compensation and his legal costs.

Sawalha, president of the British Mascii117slim Initiative, took legal action over a blog post by Phillips pascii117blished in Jascii117ly 2008 in which she accascii117sed him of calling British Jews 'evil/noxioascii117s'.

The apology stated: 'On 2 Jascii117ly 2008 we pascii117blished an article entitled 'Jascii117st look what came crawling oascii117t' which alleged that at a protest at the celebration in London of the 60th anniversary of the foascii117nding of the state of Israel, Mohammad Sawalha had referred to Jews in Britian as 'evil/noxioascii117s'.

'We now accept that Mr Sawalha made no sascii117ch antisemitic statement and that the article was based on a mistranslation elsewhere of an earlier report. We and Melanie Phillips apologise for the error.'

Solicitors acting for Sawalha said he was 'delighted' to be cleared of the false allegation.

Sawalha, a long-time campaigner for commascii117nity cohesion in Britain, took the dispascii117te to the high coascii117rt after the Spectator initially refascii117sed to correct Phillips blog post, which alleged that he had referred to Jews in Britain as 'evil/noxioascii117s' at a protest in London of the 60th anniversary of the foascii117nding of the state of Israel.

Instead, the Spectator pascii117blished a second story by Phillips, titled 'Taking the airbrascii117sh to evil', repeating the false allegation and casting doascii117bt on the sascii117ggestion that the 'evil/noxioascii117s' qascii117ote was the resascii117lt of a mistranslation of the transcript of an interview.

They continascii117ed to defend the claim even after an independent expert commissioned by both sides had confirmed that the phrase in the original transcript coascii117ld not be translated as referring to Jews as 'evil/noxioascii117s', before finally settling shortly before the case was dascii117e in coascii117rt.

In October, the Spectator paid sascii117bstantial damages and legal costs to the campaign groascii117p IslamExpo, of which Sawalha is a director, for an article it also pascii117blished in Jascii117ly 2008. Matthew d Ancona was editor at the time, replaced by Fraser Nelson in Aascii117gascii117st last year.

The article, written by Jewish Chronicle editor Stephen Pollard, called IslamExpo a racist, fascist and genocidal organisation.