NY court: Saudi billionaire can pursue British claims in the US

The author of a book about financing terrorism cannot prevent a Saudi billionaire from trying to enforce a London libel verdict in the United States, a US federal appeals court said Monday. The Saudi businessman, Khalid Salim A. Bin Mahfouz, has made claims against authors and journalists more than two dozen times over writings on terrorism and those who fund it, including Manhattan author Rachel Ehrenfeld's 2003 book, "Funding Evil: How Terrorism is Financed - and How to Stop It." Ehrenfeld wrote that Bin Mahfouz and his family provided financial support to al-Qaida and other "Islamist terror groups." The 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday rejected Ehrenfeld's lawsuit to stop the Bin Mahfouz from trying to collect on a default judgment obtained against Ehrenfeld in London.