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British Board settles with Palestinian charity
Updated: 29/Dec/2005 16:45
Photo: Interpal
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The UK’s most prominent representative organization of the Jewish community was this week forced to apologise to a London-based Palestinian charity it had branded a “terrorist organization”.

The Board of Deputies of British Jews announced in a statement that it had reached an out of court settlement with the charity Interpal which raises money for social projects in the Palestinian controlled areas.

Interpal launched a court case against the Board two years ago after the Board put out a press release warning of Islamic extremism in the UK, citing Interpal as an example of a “terrorist organization”.

Assets frozen

The situation arose after the American treasury department moved to freeze the assets of Interpal’s US arm. Washington claimed Interpal was raising money to fund Hamas terror activities in the West Bank and Gaza.

The action prompted an investigation by the UK Charity Commission., the body which oversees all charity activity in the UK.

Although the Charity Commission froze the assets of Interpal in the UK while the investigation was going on, it later said it had been unable to find any evidence of Interpal funding terror activities and gave the charity the green light to continue fundraising activities.

In September 2003, not long after the Charity Commission released its conclusions, the Board sent out the press release and published it on the bod.org.uk website.

Interpal immediately released a counter statement denying the claims and proceeded to launch legal action against the Board.

After more than two years of legal wrangling, the two sides have finally reached a compromise in an out of court settlement.

Apology welcomed

In a statement on the Board’s website, the organization apologized to Interpal.

Referring to the press release, the statement read: “In the item, we referred to “terrorist organisations such as Hamas and Interpal”. We would like to make it clear that we should not have described Interpal in this way and we regret the upset and distress our item caused.”

A spokesman for the Board said the organisatoin would not be commenting further on the issue.

Interpal chairman Ibrahim Hewitt, however, welcomed the settlement although he would not give details of the precise terms saying they would “remain confidential”.

“We are extremely pleased to have won such an important and long-running battle," Hewitt told the BBC.

"All that we ever wanted was an apology to clear the charity’s name,” he added. “We are glad that we can now put the Board of Deputies’ attack upon the charity behind us and can focus our energies entirely upon Interpal’s essential relief work."

Hewitt said Interpal was continuing to make efforts to meet with US Treasury officials to encourage them to recognize the real status of the charity.

"We have been trying to negotiate with them - we’ve always said they are welcome to come and check our systems."

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