Israeli police claimed to have "direct proof" linking Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority to the killing of two Arab land brokers who sold Arab-owned land to Jews. Last month, Palestinian Justice Minister Freih Abu Medein urged a death sentence for Arabs who sell land to Jews, and since then three land dealers have been murdered. Israeli police rescued another dealer minutes after his June 1 abduction, taking into custody his six kidnappers.
In Israeli politics, former army chief Ehud Barak easily won election as leader of the Labor Party. Mr. Barak pledged to push for early elections to oust conservative Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Is Kevorkian libel proof?
Just when you thought you'd heard it all, a Michigan judge ruled in a decision made public last week that suicide doctor Jack Kevorkian's claim he was libeled may now move forward.
How, exactly, does one libel Dr. Death?
According to Mr. Kevorkian's attorney Geoffrey Fieger, the American Medical Association libeled his client in a news release by saying he had engaged in "criminal conduct" and labeling him a "killer." Imagine that. Instead of being proud of this perfectly appropriate title, Mr. Kevorkian is suing the AMA for $10 million. For what? To get his "good name" back?
"'Free' though speech may be, it can still carry a price tag," Judge Sharon Finch stated in a ruling disclosed last week by Mr. Fieger. "The First Amendment does not guarantee that one will be safe from suit for libelous statements."
The judge held that because Mr. Kevorkian has never been convicted of the crime of murder, it is "libel per se" to label him a killer. "This allegation is so strong and so unequivocal," Judge Finch ruled, "that when directed against a specific person, it constitutes libel."
Problem is, this specific person kills specific other persons, causing their hearts to stop beating, their lungs to quit breathing. Regrettably, this is neither criminal nor murder by the sorry standards of today's jurisprudence, but carbon monoxide does kill.
This ridiculous libel case still must be tried; the ruling simply was to allow the case to come to court. But if Mr. Kevorkian wins and the judgment stands on appeal, pro-lifers and pro-life publishers had better brace themselves for the onslaught of libel litigation from the child-killers better known in polite society as "abortionists."
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DISPATCHES |
Issue: "Bailing Out"
June 14, 1997
Evolved