5th November 2018

Lee & Thompson’s Mike Brookes and Leo Dawkins have secured an apology and substantial damages for His Highness Prince Moulay Ben Abdallah Al Alaoui of Morocco.

The Prince, a member of the Moroccan Royal Family and a democracy and human rights advocate, brought defamation and data protection proceedings against Elaph Publishing Limited, a London based company which publishes an online newspaper about Arabic affairs from its website, www.elaph.com, in respect of an article it had published in 2014.

Amongst many other false and defamatory allegations, the website alleged  that the Prince was endlessly plotting, scheming and weaving machinations in order to damage his country Morocco and its monarch, Mohammad VI, his own cousin, thereby showing himself to be devious, underhand and disloyal.

As confirmed by the Prince’s Leading Counsel Justin Rushbrooke QC in Court this morning (5 November 2018), the website has now, after 3 years of hard fought litigation, finally apologised to the Prince, conceding that the article it published was false and defamatory. It has paid the Prince substantial damages and has also agreed to pay the Prince’s legal costs.

A full Press Release followed by the Statement in Open Court can be found here.