Ex-Qatari PM sues New York Post for defamation over FIFA corruption claims

(CN) — A former Qatari prime minister sued the New York Post’s parent companies for defamation Monday after the tabloid accused him of acting corruptly to secure the 2022 FIFA World Cup for Qatar.

Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber al-Thani’s complaint — filed in Delaware Superior Court against NYP Holdings, Inc. and News Corporation — centers around a May 15 New York Post article titled “Sheikh who owns $400M Qatari jet gifted to Trump is embroiled in $20M luxury hotel spat.”

The Post’s article discusses a separate lawsuit filed in California federal court, in which Northern Irish businessman Paddy McKillen accused al-Thani and two other Qatari royals of racketeering and failing to compensate McKillen for hotel renovations.

However, al-Thani focuses entirely on three sentences early in the article, in which he says the tabloid portrayed him as a corrupt leader.

The article begins by asserting that al-Thani “has previously faced allegations of corruption and antisemitism.” Later in the article, the Post says that a Washington think tank branded him the “Thief of Doha.” The Post also claimed that the U.S. Department of Justice accused al-Thani of “presiding over bribery and corruption when he led the bid to bring the 2022 World Cup to Qatar.”

“Defendants published these specific allegations of corruption, knowing that they were false, or at best (for defendants) with reckless disregard to whether or not these allegations were true or false,” al-Thani writes in the complaint.

Accusations of corruption and bribery surrounded Qatar’s bid for the 2022 FIFA World Cup almost immediately after the country was selected by the FIFA Executive Committee in December 2010.

In 2011, Qatari whistleblower Phaedra Al-Majid accused Qatar of paying $1.5 million to three African FIFA Executive Committee members in exchange for their votes for Qatar. While Al-Majid recanted her claims shortly after, she later reversed course again, telling reporters that Qatari officials coerced her into withdrawing her accusations. Qatar has denied Al-Majid’s claims.

In 2012, FIFA officials appointed U.S. attorney Michael Garcia to investigate corruption in world football with a summary of the “Garcia Report” released in 2014. While several critics challenged its credibility, the report cleared Qatar of any wrongdoing.

Additionally, while the Justice Department conducted an investigation into corruption within FIFA that resulted in 14 indictments in 2015 spanning several countries, none of the defendants had any affiliation with Qatar or its 2022 bid team.

And while the Justice Department in a 2020 indictment did accuse individuals of offering and receiving bribes relating to Qatar’s bid to host the 2022 World Cup, it did not accuse any Qatari government official of any such involvement, and al-Thani was never named in a related proceeding.

“The Post knew or recklessly disregarded that the [statements] in the article concerning the 2022 FIFA World Cup were false and did not report accurately on the DOJ FIFA Investigation since the various indictments are publicly available,” al-Thani writes in the complaint.

Furthermore, al-Thani noted, he had no official role with the Qatar 2022 Bid Committee; as such, he argued, he couldn’t have “led the bid” for Qatar to host the event as the New York Post asserted.

He also says the “Thief of Doha” nickname was “said in jest” by then-Qatari emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa in an article by Memri, a non-profit press monitoring organization.

al-Thani rejected the notion that Memri is a think tank as the Post claimed, noting that “it has been criticized for bias in its articulation of statements favorable to Israel and unfavorable to Arab nations, institutions and persons.”

al-Thani seeks compensatory and punitive damages to be determined at trial.

Representatives for NYP Holdings and News Corporation could not be immediately reached for comment.

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