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Radical Islamist Sues Conservative Journalist, Loses Badly After Judge Slams ‘Worthless’ Testimony

Famed conservative journalist Douglas Murray scored a major legal victory Tuesday, as a UK court dismissed a defamation lawsuit brought by a radical Islamist, ruling that the plaintiff “lied on significant issues” and presented evidence deemed “worthless.”

After Murray wrote a column in September 2022 in The Spectator that claimed Mohammed Hijab, whose legal name is Mohamad Nabil Hegab, “was a street agitator who, in the context of disturbances’ between local Muslims and Hindus,’ whipped up his followers and made disparaging comments about Hindus,” the court’s ruling explained, Hijab sued, claiming the article had caused reputational harm and loss of earnings.

The judge dismissed Hijab’s defamation completely, writing:

As a witness he was combative and constantly argumentative. He sought, at every turn, to debate with counsel, responding to questions with (rhetorical) questions of his own, arguing his case rather than giving straightforward responses, and denigrating the character of the second defendant to whom he bears palpable personal animosity. I am satisfied that he lied on significant issues, with the consequence that his evidence, overall, is worthless. Specifically, I am satisfied that he lied in respect of the event at Golders Green, the counter-protest at the rally for Israel, the seminar on Hinduism at the Sapience Institute, his repudiation of vigilantism, his evidence as to the involvement of the Hindutva, his evidence about his choice of language in his speech, and his evidence in support of his claim for financial losses.

The Spectator reported, “Hijab appeared to have invented contracts after Douglas’s article was published, in order to claim damages for their bogus cancellation. … The earnings Hijab claimed to have lost included a £3,500-a-month deal to be a brand ambassador for the charity One Ummah, a £1,500-a-month advertising contract with supplements company Nature’s Blends and £30,000 for a Ramadan fundraising campaign with the charity Salam. But messages that he relied on for these claims ‘have the appearance of being contrived for the purpose of these proceedings,’ the judge said.”

Additionally, according to the court ruling, on May 23, 2021 — two and a half years before the Hamas October 7, 2023 massacre of Israelis — at a rally for Israel in the vicinity of the Israeli Embassy, Hijab grabbed a megaphone and “gave a speech to a group of men, many of whom were wearing masks and hoods.” He yelled, “The truth of the matter is we are with the brothers and sisters of Palestine, and we will get our vengeance in this dunya or the akhira. We will get our vengeance, and believe you me we believe in a god that is just, and we will get our justice either in this world or in the hereafter. And the difference between us and them is this … They think that life begins; for us, we believe that death begins. We believe that life begins at death. We don’t care about death. We love death.”

At one anti-Israel protest organized by Hijab, a protester declared, “We’ll find some Jews there. We want the Zionists. We want their blood,” the court reported.

“Hijab sought to show that The Spectator had published something untrue,” The Spectator asserted. “He failed. But he also wanted to intimidate Douglas and the magazine. He sought damages of tens of thousands of pounds, and tried to recuperate his legal costs of hundreds of thousands of pounds. He attempted to use Britain’s legal system to silence journalists, and to paint himself as an upstanding citizen turned victim. This has backfired.”

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