On October 19, 2004, Khalid bin Mahfouz, the former owner of the National Commercial Bank (NCB), the biggest bank in Saudi Arabia, filed suit for libel against Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld in an English court.  He sued for statements made in the original edition of Dr. Ehrenfeld's book Funding Evil: How Terrorism is Financed and How to Stop It .  In her book, she wrote about Mahfouz's widely-reported financial links to Al-Qaeda and HAMAS.  Bin Mahfouz, through his Muwafaq Foundation, which he founded and funded, supported Al-Qaeda, HAMAS, and other Islamist organizations, and used his National Commercial Bank to transfer funds to terrorist organizations. Bin Mahfouz contends that he "never knowingly financed terrorism of any description" and that the NCB was not used to transfer money to terrorists.  

Rather than litigate with bin Mahfouz in an unfavorable forum with libel law antithetical to that here, Dr. Ehrenfeld has decided to sue him in federal court in New York.  Her suit is for a declaratory judgment that what she wrote about bin Mahfouz is not libelous under American law.  

Dr. Ehrenfeld's suit is important and worthy of attention for a number of reasons:

1. It seeks to declare a libel default judgment from an English court against an American writer unenforceable in America because American constitutional law is so much more profoundly protective of freedom of expression.
2. It seeks to permit continued freedom of the press to investigate and report fairly and responsibly on one of the most important public issues of our time:  the funding of international terrorism.
3. It seeks, through innovative and novel legal procedure, to establish a precedent for all journalists and writers against libel forum-shopping.
4. It seeks to declare that Mahfouz could not prevail on his libel claim under American law.
5. It seeks a fair forum, one respectful of fundamental press freedoms, to determine whether a libel plaintiff can prevail on a libel claim.
6. It is an opportunity to provide the court and to put on public record documents showing that KBM's Muwafaq Foundation and The National Commercial Bank of Saudi Arabia financed designated terror organizations.