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Comment

In the High Court on 19 November 2010 I had obtained a default libel judgment in my favour against a Norwegian journalist, Roy Hansen, and a Norwegian Police Sergeant, Torill Sorte. This was set aside by Mrs Justice Sharp on 29 July 2011 (one week after the Breivik killings and bombing) and my claim against Sorte’s employer, the Norwegian Ministry of Justice & the Police, was struck out at the same time - as the Ministry were immune from suit under the State Immunity Act 1978. The Ministry were not immune from Breivik’s bomb which obliterated their entire premises. Breivik and I were different sides of the same coin.

In her judgment of 29 July 2011 Mrs Justice Sharp deliberately failed to mention the obvious: that Islamophobia in Norway was the central issue of my argument against Hansen, Sorte and the Ministry of Justice and the Police, Norway.

I could accept, reluctantly, the setting aside and strike out order from Mrs Justice Sharp. What I could not accept were distinct aspects of her reasoning and conclusions in her judgment deliberately designed to protect a Norwegian government and establishment in extremis and to cover up despicable features of definitive perversion. Sharp J. had subverted normality and the story I bring you will, I trust, convince you of this.

The transcript of the hearing of 16 March 2011 makes it abundantly clear that I made the all-consuming hatred of Islam by the Norwegian establishment my main complaint.

A week before Mrs Justice Sharp's judgment was handed down Anders Behring Breivik, evil genius and virulent Muslim-hater, blew up central Oslo - including the offices of the Ministry of Justice and the Police, Norway killing three of its employees as well as the offices of Verdens Gang newspaper who had published front page stories on me in 1995 and 1998. Little did Breivik know that he was in fact destroying the offices of institutions which somewhat despised the Muslim faith. He then went on to Utoya island and proceeded to shoot dead sixty-nine people. All because he hated Muslims.

Point still not taken by Mrs Justice Sharp.

In the late autumn of 2012 I spoke to the lawyer for the Ministry of Justice and the Police, Norway - Christian Reusch. He had been on leave for the past year since the obliteration of his offices by Anders Breivik's bomb. He was forthright enough to tell me that he had no idea that the Norwegian newspapers had been calling me by my religion for over a decade and moreover did not know about the religious hate email campaign directed against me (initiated in no small part by his client policewoman Torill Sorte's comments to Dagbladet newspaper in December 2005). This surprised me as all the relevant evidence was in the possession of his Ministry and their UK lawyers, Charles Russell. Christian Reusch's witness statement contained information that he could not possibly have believed to be true. But when I went before Master Leslie at the High Court to ask for Christian Reusch to be subpoenaed to attend court for cross-examination over his witness statement, Master Leslie said he had no jurisdiction to ask Christian Reusch to attend in London. None of the evidence presented by the defendants could therefore be tested in court by cross-examination - a wholly unsatisfactory state of affairs. As a litigant in person I desperately needed more time to prepare for the hearing following the Defendants' application to set aside judgment. But the Defendants would not agree to this. So I went before Mr Justice Bean at the High Court to ask for a few more weeks to prepare. The Norwegian's barrister, David Hirst, strenuously argued that I should not be given any more time and that my previous application before Master Leslie had been "dismissed instantly" (omitting to tell Mr Justice Bean exactly why). Mr Justice Bean, however, saw no good reason not to give me, a busy solicitor, the extra time I needed. I was not a libel (or even a litigation) solicitor and could not afford the vast sums needed to employ a solicitor and barrister to represent me. So I had to do it all myself. I discovered more than a year after my hearing before Mrs Justice Sharp that she was Jewish. This was significant as I had told her that my grandfather was a German soldier killed in Stalingrad in 1942 (see transcript of hearing dated 16 March 2011 above). I mentioned this in court only to illustrate that as Germany had invaded Norway in the last war then the Norwegians, aware of this personal fact, would not have liked me. Indeed, the Norwegian press referred to me once as "half-German, half-Arab". It is, I repeat, patently obvious when comparing the transcript of the hearing with her judgment that Mrs Justice Sharp had a deep personal grudge against my German heritage and my Muslim religion. Her victory was very short lived given the exposure and torment the Norwegians received on 22 July 2011. If it had not been for Breivik, Mrs Justice Sharp's cover up for Norwegian Islamophobia and bigotry would have succeeded completely. In my opinion she is unfit to be a judge and God only knows why the Queen on the advice of Her government promoted Mrs Justice Sharp, in March 2013, to the Court of Appeal.

In February 2013 I noticed that Defendant Roy Hansen had removed the offending article from the internet.

* The Medusa Touch referred to in the heading of this website is the name of a 1970’s film starring Richard Burton and Lee Remick. In Greek mythology Medusa was a monster or Gorgon with the face of a hideous woman with snakes in place of hair. Nowadays Medusa is used as a symbol of malevolence and it was in this light that the film The Medusa Touch was cast.

Richard Burton played the part of John Morlar a well-known novelist whose previous occupation was as a barrister when he defended a gentleman called Lovelass, played by James Hazeldene. Lovelass was prosecuted for a publication which supposedly provoked public disorder and Judge McKinley, played by Robert Flemyng, sentenced Lovelass to nine years imprisonment. The look of hatred that Richard Burton gave the odious Judge McKinley was such that the judge died in his chambers an hour after the trial had finished. Richard Burton / John Morlar had the power to will death/disaster and Judge McKinley was one of his many victims.

I very much identified myself with the “hapless” defendant Lovelass in the film and saw Mrs Justice Sharp as every bit as treacherous as Judge McKinley. In my case however, the ‘Medusa touch’ came at the very moment Mrs Justice Sharp’s judgment was about to be handed down. On 22 July 2011 my sworn enemy, the Ministry of Justice and the Police in Norway, had its offices blown up by Anders Behring Breivik’s car bomb. Mrs Justice Sharp’s judgment was handed down on 29 July 2011. The Norwegian Police were also blamed, through their incompetence, for allowing Breivik to escape Oslo and carry on to kill 69 people on Utoya island. After what the Norwegian establishment and press had put me through for the previous 16 years I wanted the whole of Norway to be punished. It was. And the more so as my point, so prodigiously ignored by the Norwegians, that they were consummate racists and Islamophobes was proven beyond all measure by the persona of Anders Behring Breivik whose purpose in life was to defile Muslims. Breivik had a whole army of sympathisers in Norway and Europe according to many. The deaths of so many young people on Utoya island was a catastrophic horror for the victims and their families. But those who knew neither families nor victims – which was most of Norway – still, nevertheless, had a taste of the pain that their establishment had inflicted on me: the pain that comes from sufferring outrageous iniquity.

The film The Medusa Touch began by showing a print of the ‘iconic’ picture The Scream – one of Norway’s greatest artistic treasures in its various forms – hanging in the sitting room of Richard Burton / John Morlar. The supreme irony for me. There was another personal connection as well. In the film there was a scene showing one of Morlar’s colleagues at the Bar, played by Alan Badel, talking with the detective, Brunel, played by Lino Ventura: the location was outside Temple Church and 1 Pump Court, Cloisters, Temple, London EC4. It just so happened that the barrister I chose to represent me at the pointless half-hour hearing at the Court of Appeal, Jonathan Crystal, was, when I first met him, a member of Cloisters chambers.

* * *

At the permission to appeal hearing before Lord Justice Hooper on 1 February 2012 Jonathan Crystal did his best in the circumstances (see his submission below), but the judge ruled that as I had been unable to provide any evidence as to who had seen the offending wording on the internet, there was no publication to sue over. Permission to appeal was therefore refused. Which meant, in effect, that a solicitor outrageously libelled on the internet had no remedy in law if he could not prove (in line with the Mardas case) that at least a small number of people had seen the offending words. And I could not be bothered to go to the European Court of Human Rights to claim against the injustice of not being able to sue for libel in the UK without being able to prove that at least a few people had seen the defamatory wording. I would have to wait 5-6 years for a hearing and a decision even if the ECHR had accepted my Application. The fact that the offending words were there for all to see if they did a Google search on my name was not enough to bring a claim. However, Lord Justice Hooper was quite wrong to agree with Mrs Justice Sharp's conclusion that the matter had already "been litigated in the Norwegian courts" and so to bring a case here was just an abuse of process and harassment of Torill Sorte. The matter had most certainly not been litigated in Norway at all. (I had litigated on another matter in Norway). I had submitted two lever arch file bundles of documentation to the Court of Appeal with material illustrating the more loony aspects of the Norwegian judicial system. It is very amateurish and unprofessional in so many ways and this is something the British public and British judiciary are quite unaware of. Until now. Mrs Justice Sharp had all the information before her but chose to protect the 'friendly' country of Norway. The Norwegian courts have not even been given the money by the Norwegian parliament to record the proceedings in civil cases. So there is never a fool-proof record of what went on in a case which can be used as evidence in any appeal. This gives the Norwegian judiciary every opportunity to present a partisan view of the proceedings as presented by the written judgment - one can obtain no transcript to compare it with.

In February 2013 the Essex Police Hate Crimes Unit re-submitted to Interpol for investigation the religious hate emails sent to me by Norwegians in December 2005 - for which Torill Sorte was in large part to blame after her comments to Dagbladet newspaper (which also I did not litigate over). I hope the likes of Mrs Justice Sharp and Lord Justice Hooper do not think the British Police are harassing Torill Sorte as well.

The background

Mrs Justice Sharp, followed by the Rt. Hon. Sir Richard Buxton and Lord Justice Hooper at the Court of Appeal ruled primarily that I did not have jurisdiction to sue in the United Kingdom. Counsel for the Norwegians had argued that my claim should fail, inter alia, on the grounds that I did not come up with the names of anyone who had read the offending wording on the internet written by a Norwegian journalist, Roy Hansen, in Norway. Wording that came up nice and easy when doing a Google search on my name and clicking on the very enticing ‘Translate this page’ link inserted deliberately by Roy Hansen beside his newspaper article link. My name was in full view on his Norwegian language extract immediately below the link. Click on the ‘Translate this page’ link and up comes a story in English from 2006 that Hansen had wanted to give a second airing to so as to smear me after my very successful campaign against a corrupt Police officer in Norway called Torill Sorte. The Google-facilitated translation was by no means a perfect translation into English but the general purport of the article was intelligible enough: a Norwegian police officer, Torill Sorte, being quoted as calling me “clearly mentally unstable.” She said this after I had huge success in promoting the Norway Shockers website on leading Norwegian newspapers own website blogging/comment facilities when I also called Torill Sorte “a liar,cheat and abuser” for telling national newspaper Dagbladet in December 2005 that from 1992 I had been “a patient in a UK lunatic asylum for two years” and that when I came out in 1994 the newspaper said that I was “worse than ever”. I was a solicitor in full employment for that period and had never in any event spent a second in any lunatic asylum. Even the journalist at Dagbladet, Morten Øverbye, who did the story in December 2005 after speaking to Torill Sorte, told me on 12 May 2007 (which I recorded) that Torill Sorte was the source of the information and: “If she [Torill Sorte] says you have been in a mental hospital and you have not been in a mental hospital then she’s lying. That’s a no-brainer.”

Well, I complained to the Norwegian Bureau for the Investigation of Police Affairs (the Spesialenheten For Politisaker) against Torill Sorte for her ludicrous statements. I sent them a CD of my 12 May 2007 conversation with the Dagbladet journalist. It came as one hell of a surprise to be told that my complaint will not be passed on to Torill Sorte for her comments. That the procedure in Norway is not to involve the police officer at this stage, contrary to the UK system when the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) always sends a copy of the complaint to the police officer in question who is obliged to respond. So what transpired was that in late 2007 an official at the Spesialenheten, Johan Martin Welhaven, sent me his decision. He declared that Torill Sorte’s statement that I was “clearly mentally unstable” was “neither negligent nor defamatory” on the grounds of “the contents of Mr El Diwany’s website and other facts”. Regarding my complaint on the matter of allegedly being a patient for two years in a lunatic asylum there was no comment from Johan Martin Welhaven at all. So I called him up and asked him what exactly was it on my website that indicated I was “clearly mentally unstable” and what were the “other facts” that indicated this? That it was not for him to decide that I was mentally unstable out of spite due to his obvious partisan Norwegian leaning over an anti-Norway website. In particular I said that as it was police sergeant Torill Sorte who made the allegation that I was “clearly mentally unstable” then common sense dictated that she had to be asked why she said this and what her evidence was for saying this. And how exactly, I protested, was I supposed to have spent “two years” in an asylum in the UK according to Toril Sorte? Johan Martin Welhaven said he would not discuss the case. That he had already made his decision and I could appeal. I pressed him for answers but he was adamant: he would not discuss the case. So I appealed and the verdict that came was: Case dismissed, said the Public Prosecutor, as no new evidence had been presented by me to change their minds. Johan Martin Welhaven became a police chief in 2011.

The above verdict was used by Charles Russell and their solicitor James Quatermaine, (acting for Torill Sorte and her employer the Ministry of Justice and the Police, Norway), to argue at the High Court through counsel David Hirst in March 2011 on their clients’ application to set aside libel judgment in my favour, that I was indeed mentally ill. Mrs Justice Sharp in her judgment said that as my complaints against Torill Sorte for her newspaper and other allegations on my “mental health” were “rejected” in Norway by the Spesialenheten, then I had no right to litigate again here in the UK on the internet libel which she said was slander anyway and not libel: Torill Sorte had told one journalist to his face - Roy Hansen - that I was “clearly mentally unstable” and she had told no one else. Roy Hansen had then printed it up in his local newspaper in January 2006. And that I was also out of time to sue here on the re-activated Google translate article (purposely put up by Roy Hansen).

Mrs Justice Sharp, of course, was doing all her decision making in private on the paper evidence from the hearing and I had no chance to counter any of her perverse reasoning on my “mental health” position. If you look at the link above for the transcript of the March 2011 hearing before Mrs Justice Sharp you will see the reality of the case and the fact that I had chastised Torill Sorte for her insane “two years in a mental hospital” comments in 2005 which was the catalyst for a vicious sexualised hate email campaign from Norway against me. Those hate emails were read out before Mrs Justice Sharp to indicate what the consequences of Torill Sorte’s 2005 Dagbladet newspaper comments were. The contents of the emails were so vile that I did not think it required me to ask the judge to confirm this explicitly. I was wrong. Not one word on these sick emails made Mrs Sharp’s judgment and for that I feel she should be sacked as a judge for her clear anti-Muslim bias. The Essex Police Hate Crimes Unit send these hate emails to Interpol in 2006 and again in 2013 when I tried again for something to be done over this hate-crime. I told Mrs Justice Sharp that the Spesialenheten inquiry did not even involve Torill Sorte and that therefore she, Mrs Justice Sharp, cannot abide by such an inept procedure. Johan Martin Welhaven was not a psychiatrist and he had given no reasons of any substance as to why I was “clearly mentally unstable.” Moreover the Spesialenheten decision was not a judicial decision from a court in Norway and could not possibly be used to argue that I was re-litigating “decided issues” in London. I told Mrs Justice Sharp that I had been making the Norwegian press for over 10 years when all they referred to me as, for a lot of the time, was the “Muslim man”. The story was over a girl I knew who herself was in fact a registered mental patient and the source of the newspapers’ information. Her name was Heidi Schøne. I litigated in Norway in 2002/3 over the allegations that I was for example a “sex-terrorist” and “insane”. The result? Case dismissed. I was not even allowed to cross-examine my opponent Heidi Schøne as her psychiatrist, Dr Petter Broch, came to court to say she was unfit to face cross-examination! That she was suffering from “an enduring personality disorder initiated in her adolescence” and had been abused by most members of her family to varying degrees and had “a tendency to sexualise her behaviour”. And that her psychiatric treatment was not working. BUT all her evidence against me, consisting solely of her uncorroborated word, was declared as true. The Norwegian court judgment did not list her evidence! At the conclusion of this Court of Appeal case I was arrested at the door of the court for my anti-Norway website. My appeal to the Supreme Court in Norway was dismissed with no reasons given - as was the court’s right for claims under 100,000.00 Norwegian Kroner. My application to the ECHR was dismissed in 2004 with no reasons given with the Norwegian judge at Strasbourg, Sverre Erik Jebens, voting in favour of his home country. The ECHR wrote to me to tell me that Sverre Erik Jebens, although Norwegian, had abided by ECHR rules and was in effect completely independent from his home country.

The full detail of my appeal to the Court of Appeal as per the documentation referred to below will show why Mrs Justice Sharp is a really nasty piece of work. I was not so upset regarding the substantive part of her judgment that I had no jurisdiction to sue in the UK etc. I was annoyed at the many errors of fact she had made in her judgment, but shocked at her failure to express any sympathy in her judgment over my distress at the year in, year out abuse of my religion from the Norwegians – which abuse, especially from the hate emails, she herself had clearly condoned by her silence. She took it out on me, I believe, because I was Muslim/Arab with a German grandfather who fought for Hitler and died at Stalingrad. And Mrs Justice Sharp was Jewish. I had told her this in court as the reason the Norwegians so disliked me: the Germans had invaded Norway and the Norwegian establishment and people did not like Muslims and the Norwegians knew I had a German mother. Makes sense doesn’t it? Particularly in the light of Anders Breivik’s killing campaign in Norway in July 2011 on the grounds that Muslims are basically, in his opinion, filth.

The Rt. Hon. Sir Richard Buxton had all my “voluminous” (his word) appeal papers - as referred to below - and still said nothing in his Order dated 14 December 2011 on the hatred of Muslims aspect from Norway and those vile emails, or the fact that the Norwegian civil procedure rules are anathema to the system of natural justice and jurisprudence in the UK which gave rise to so much abuse of my persona. He knew perfectly well what he was doing. His substantive decision was one thing: that I had “made no significant challenge to the judge’s finding that the claim in slander against Ms Sorte had failed on the grounds of jurisdiction; limitation; and the words not being actionable per se." Further, the judge found that Ms Sorte "was not responsible for the publication of the article on the internet, and the grounds on which it is now said that Mr Hansen was so responsible… do not apply to her." But the main travesty, nay, perversion in Mrs Justice Sharp’s judgment regarding her assessment of Torill Sorte’s evidence on the ‘mental health’ fabrications was not addressed by Sir Richard Buxton at all. Lord Justice Hooper was less culpable as we only had half an hour in front of him on a very specific ground of appeal. For the first time in this case I used a barrister, Jonathan Crystal. I lost out on the usual point of a lack of jurisdiction. But I desperately wanted to interject and tell his Lordship to deal with the fact that Sharp’s judgment was a travesty over her silence on the hate emails and collusion with Norwegian 'mental health' bigotry. But as an ‘officer of the court’ I had to stay silent. I had to be content that my stance on Norwegian bigotry had been amply vindicated by the actions of Anders Behring Breivik, timed to perfection to coincide with Mrs Sharp's judgment when fate had decreed that he blow up the offices of my opponents the Ministry of Justice and the Police, Norway and the offices of newspaper Verdens Gang who had done two virulent Muslim-hating stories on me in the 1990’s.

The thing with the Norwegian establishment is that the rule of law does not work over there when rampant nationalism and xenophobia takes over the matter in hand. Come what may, they cannot be seen to lose to an outsider on issues which uncover dire Norwegian xenophobic duplicity. This failing shows up most starkly in their hate-inspired press coverage and court judgments and other quasi-judicial decisions when they are very careful to ensure that evidence which shows their own people in a bad light is omitted. Reasons for decisions are not given. No transcripts can be obtained of civil trials as the courts do not have the money to be able to record the proceedings. Cross-examination of a Norwegian witness is stopped when the going gets tough for them; and their own evidence, when not in their favour, is invariably left out of the judgment (as pointed out above). Police complained against are not even given a copy of the complaint for their comments. Their police complaints system is rigged: for example all a police officer has to do to cover an allegation of lying like a bastard - and they learn this in the first day of training - is to say the complainant "told me so" or in my case "his mother told me so" and hey presto they are exonerated by their Police Complaints Bureau, with a secretive and often perfunctory investigation taking place. The Norwegians' favourite trick is to fabricate evidence of "mental ill-health" of their detested opponent. Mental ill-health in Norway is a national obsession: it permeates all areas of life - just refer to the paintings ('The Scream') and discussions of the world-renowned Norwegian painter Edvard Munch and the works of their most famous play-write Henrik Ibsen. There is no recognised concept of a hate-crime in Norway or of incitement to religious hatred. There is no cure for this general malaise as they do not regard themselves as having a problem in the first place and when it is pointed out by a foreigner that there is a problem the machine takes over to engineer a victory for the Norwegians, showing what good, honest people they all are.

Farid El Diwany
Solicitor
Lincoln's Inn, WC2
May 2013

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George Carman QC and his junior Victoria Sharp

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL                                                                                                                                                         Ref A2/2011/2457/2458

CIVIL DIVISION

EL DIWANY v HANSEN and Others

APPELLANT’S ADVOCATE WRITTEN

______________________________________________________________

STATEMENT FOR PERMISSION HEARING
______________________________________________________________

ON 1 FEBRUARY 2012 (52PD.11)

References to numbers in brackets refer to Appellants Bundles A and B

1.             The point to be raised at the hearing is that the Judge should not have struck out the claim HQ10D02334 (El-Diwany v Hansen and Sorte).

2.             Permission should be granted notwithstanding the reasons given for refusal of permission by the Rt. Hon. Sir Richard Buxton on 23 November 2011 for the following reasons;

2.1           As appears from the particulars of claim (A89 -93) grave and damaging allegations were published of the appellant;

2.2           The allegations continue to be published (A90 paragraph 6) and an up to date result of the search engines is attached.

2.3           The claim was framed in libel. It was based on an article written and published by the first defendant (Mr Roy Hansen) on his website which article was in turn based on statements made by the second Defendant (Ms Torill Sorte)

2.4           The appellant obtained judgment in default against the defendants but there was no application by Mr Hansen to set aside the judgment against him. The Judge incorrectly elided the positions of Mr Hansen and Ms Sorte and struck out the claim against Mr Hansen as well.

2.5           The claim against Mr Hansen should not have been struck out because;

2.5.1        he published and continues to publish the words complained of;

2.5.2        the words complained of are directly accessible by hyperlink

25.3         it is plainly arguable that Mr Hansen has committed a real and substantial tort within the jurisdiction see Mardas paragraphs 15-17 (B698-699)

2.5.4        the appellant understandably wishes to prevent the continuing publications of falsehoods about him, in particular that he is mentally unstable and a judgment vindicating his reputation ‘would be worth the candle’.

2.6           the claim against Ms Sorte should not have been struck out because;

2.6.1        she willingly participated in the interview with Mr Hansen which led to the article published in a Norwegian local newspaper on 11 January 2006 which was then republished on Mr Hansen’s website;

2.6.2        the claim against Ms Sorte is not in slander and the Judge’s analysis on the position in slander (paragraphs 50-53 A62-63) is arguably wrong but not material to the application;

2.6.3        it is plainly foreseeable that what she said to Mr Hansen would be republished and indeed the Judge recognised this possibility (paragraphs 54-55 A63);

2.6.4        there was no basis for absolving Ms Sorte as interviewee from what was published by Mr Hansen as interviewer;

2.6.5        the disputed factual background did not lend itself to the Judge concluding that the claim was an abuse of process or the conclusion she reached (on paper evidence) at paragraph 74 of the judgment (66).

3.              The judgment in this claim should be set aside. No similar order is sought in claim HQ10D02228 (El Diwany v The Ministry of Justice and the Police, Norway).

JONATHAN CRYSTAL

ARGENT CHAMBERS

12 JANUARY 2012

IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL
BETWEEN:

Claim no. HQ10D02334

Claim no. HQ10D02228

FARID EL DIWANY
 Appellant

-and-

 (1) ROY HANSEN

(2) TORILL SORTE
HQ10D02334 Respondents

-and-
                               
                                  
THE MINISTRY OF JUSTICE AND THE POLICE, NORWAY

HQ10D02228 Respondent

______________________________________________________________

SKELETON ARGUMENT OF FARID EL DIWANY
______________________________________________________________

Application bundles: There are 2 bundles before the Court to which reference is made below by Bundle / Tab / Page number. References are given to documents in English unless otherwise indicated. Where documents were also available in Norwegian they have been exhibited immediately behind the English translation.

1. This skeleton argument is prepared in respect of the Appellant’s application for permission to appeal.

2. The Appellant brought libel proceedings against the Respondents and such proceedings were the subject of a judgment of Sharp J. on 29 July 2011 in which she struck out the Claims and entered judgment for the Respondents.

The Parties

3. The Appellant is a solicitor (admitted 1987).
                                             
4. In Claim number HQ10D02334 the Respondents are Roy Hansen and Torill Sorte.

5. In Claim number HQ10D02228 the Respondent is the Ministry of Justice and the Police, Norway.

The Publication

6. The Appellant complained of the following publication:

A Google translated article into English from Respondent Roy Hansen’s Norwegian website called, in English, ‘Roy’s Press Service’ and published on the internet from 2009 to the present day of an Eiker Bladet newspaper article dated 11/01/2006 entitled ‘Continued harassment of policewoman’ originally published in Norwegian by journalist Roy Hansen in Eiker Bladet newspaper and then on ‘Roy’s Press Service’ website (www.pressetjeneste.no).  

The Respondent’s defamatory words

7. In paragraph 4 of the Particulars of Claim the Appellant set out the following defamatory words:

"From a date unknown but before 1st July 2009 the First Defendant [Roy Hansen] published and/or caused to be published in English on www.pressetjeneste.no the following defamatory words about the Claimant including those spoken and otherwise sourced from the Second Defendant (whose surname Sorte means and is translated, in one instance, as "Black" in English) which continues to be published online:
"a) English man Farid El Diwany continuing [sic] harassment of Norwegian women. Having harassed Heidi Schøne from Solbergelva for years. He has now loose [sic] on the police chief Torill Sorte at Lower Eiker sheriff's office;"
b) The man has bothered …Heidi and her family since 1982…
c) Since then, the Muslim man has also added [sic] police detective for hatred…
d) The man is clearly mentally unstable and must use an incredible amount of time and effort, not to mention money, to harass Heidi Schøne and the undersigned in addition to any [sic] other women we know…said Black [sic]"

The Appellant’s defamatory meanings

8. In paragraph 5 of the Particulars of Claim the Appellant set out the following defamatory meaning:
"that the Claimant harasses several Norwegian women, including and in particular Heidi Schøne and also police chief Torill Sorte and that the Claimant is mentally ill and that his being a Muslim has a connection to the behaviour complained of."

Procedural history

9. In claim number HQ10D02334 the Appellant entered judgment.
10. By Application notice dated 3 February 2011 the Respondents in Claim number HQ10D02334 applied to set aside the Default judgment dated 19 November 2010.
11. The Respondents application was heard on 16 March 2011 and led to the judgment on 29 July 2011.

The Issues

12. The Respondents application raised issues of law and fact.
13. The Appellant contends that the learned judge misdirected herself in relation to the law and arrived at mistaken legal and factual conclusions. Such are dealt with below. [Refer to paragraph 90 onwards only for the issue of state immunity/state sovereignty in relation to the Ministry of Justice claim].
14. The Appellant was asked by the learned judge to correct any errors in her draft judgment and the Appellant did so by way of two letters and one email to the learned judge at (B/28/685-691) who chose to ignore all the suggested corrections.

Responsibility for Google translation

15. The defamatory words were contained in the original Norwegian language article which appeared on the internet when a google.co.uk or google.com search was done on the name ‘Farid El Diwany’. The said Norwegian article  was posted on the internet by Roy Hansen and was combined with his deliberate action of placing the Google “[translate this page]” hyperlink (as referred to in paragraph 61 of the judgment) to enable the translation into English to be made. The learned judge was incorrect to state that Roy Hansen did not have liability for this hyperlink by her words in the second line of paragraph 61 at (A/3/64):

‘But I do not consider there is anything which fixes the Defendants, either Ms Sorte or Mr Hansen for that matter, with liability for the publication of the Google article on the internet. The “[translate this page]” facility, is a service provided by Google, and not by the Defendants. Further, contrary to the
Claimant’s assertion the hyperlink itself does not provide a direct link to the article in English’.

And in her last sentence to paragraph 61 of her judgment at (A/3/64) the learned judge says:
 
In my judgment it would not be rational, reasonable or just to ascribe tortious liability for the Google article to either Defendant in such circumstances.

(a) It is important to record that the Google “[translate this page]” hyperlink (which has been documented in a Google search print out at (B/23/658 as per the second listing beginning with the link in Norwegian: ‘Forsetter trakassering av politikvinne…’) had to be specifically chosen and put in place by Roy Hansen, the website user of the facility, in order to have his ‘Forsetter trakassering av politikvinne…’ article translated into English. The actual appearance of the “[translate this page]” hyperlink and thus the translated article is not down to Google. Google facilitated the translation but only after Roy Hansen activated the “[translate this page]” hyperlink. Roy Hansen is thus culpable and liable for the hyperlink.

Please refer to the Witness Statement of internet expert Rick Kordowski in evidence of the above at (A/6/186-187).

(b) Further, for the learned judge to say that the “[translate this page]” hyperlink did not provide a direct link to the English article is certainly not correct. The hyperlink as per the third listing is still online at (B/23/669) and to click on it will produce the English translation at (B/23/671-672) being a print out of the google.co.uk search on the Claimant’s name and the offending English language article dated 28/09/2011. Previous versions of the Google searches and offending English language articles were provided for the hearing on 16 March 2011 as at (B/23/649-668) and it should be noted that the coloured print out of the article dated 5 February 2011 from Roy Hansen’s website is in exactly the same format and design as for Norwegian language article, both at (B/23/665-668). The Appellant’s judgment against Roy Hansen at (B/25/677) should not therefore have been set aside as there has been deliberate publication of the article in the UK jurisdiction by Roy Hansen resulting in a substantial tort.

The English Google translated article remains online and the gist of the article can be understood and can be compared with a professional translation into English of the original Norwegian language article

16. In producing the current Google translated version of the offending article at (B/23/671-672) it can be seen that the odd word is mistranslated but the sense of the article is on the whole intelligible especially as the most serious allegation, that of being “clearly mentally unstable” in the last paragraph is clearly set out. As Google allow readers to contribute to a better translation online then in time the article can be translated into perfect English. Indeed the learned judge has conceded in the penultimate sentence of paragraph 61 of her judgment at (A/3/64) as per the wording below that varying versions of the article appear on the internet:

61…….As the several versions of the Google article which have been produced in evidence demonstrate, the use of the service at different times, produces a different combination of words even though the general sense of what is published may remain the same.

A certified professional translation of the original Eiker Bladet Norwegian article into English is provided at (B/15/569-574) for comparison with the Google translation.

Has there been sufficient publication?

17. The case of Mardas v New York Times; Mardas v International Herald Tribune [2008] EWHC 3135 9QB; [2009] EMLR 8 at (B/30/693-702) supports the Appellant’s arguments put before the judge in his letter dated 18 April 2011 at (B/27/681-684) in relation to a substantial tort having been committed against him by Roy Hansen’s deliberately chosen “[translate this page]” hyperlink for his publication. The learned judge mentions by name only the Mardas case in the last line of paragraph 63 of her judgment at (A/3/64) but fails to explain why it is not relevant to the Appellant’s case.

The Appellant’s arguments in line with the decision of the Mardas case - the relevant extracts of which from Mr Justice Eady’s judgment appear in (k) below - are that:

(a) The Appellant does have a reputation to defend in this country as he works as a solicitor in [ ] with some very high profile [ ] clients and as there are very few Arab solicitors in London it will be easy for his reputation to be permanently damaged in the Arab and Muslim world if word spreads that a journalist is quoting a police officer calling the Claimant “clearly mentally unstable”. Who wants to give work to such a solicitor? [ ]. Roy Hansen has targeted the Appellant where it can hurt him the most: the google.com and google.co.uk search engine facility when clients and prospective clients and others do a search against ‘Farid El Diwany’. Up comes the link for the Norwegian article and the English translation is on a hyperlink just a click away which it must be very tempting to perform.

(b) It is arguable that there has been a real and substantial tort in this jurisdiction and it cannot depend on a numbers game with the courts fixing an arbitrary minimum number of hits on the article.

(c) Suitable case management may well be sufficient to deal with and resolve this court action rather than bringing the case to trial.

(d) The Appellant does not have to adduce evidence of any actual harm caused to his reputation within the jurisdiction. In paragraph 2.08 on page 17 of ‘A Practical Guide to Libel and Slander’ by Jeremey Clarke-Williams and Lorna Skinner under the heading ‘Burden of Proof’ it says: ‘The claimant merely has to prove facts from which it can be reasonably inferred that the words complained of were brought to the attention of a third party. He does not have to prove that the allegations were brought to the actual attention of a third party.’

(e) The article complained of and the “translate this page” hyperlink in fact remain online and as the said hyperlink was put there deliberately by the Respondent Roy Hansen he clearly means it to be read by people who search against the name ‘Farid El Diwany’ on the google.com and google.co.uk search engine facility. It is therefore very much Roy Hansen’s intention to damage the Appellant’s reputation. He has even admitted through his Norwegian lawyers that the original article “was written according to regular Norwegian journalistic ethics and it was not considered necessary to obtain Mr El Dewany’s opinion.” as per a letter addressed to the Senior Master dated 21 September 2010 at (B/24/673-675 on page 2 of the letter in the  sixth paragraph). The Norwegian press in 19 articles in 12 years only once informed the Appellant that they were going to do an article and never printed his opinion. Hardly ethical!

Why mentally unstable?

(f) Counsel for Roy Hansen and Torill Sorte was very keen to argue at the High Court hearing on 16 March 2011 that the Claimant was “clearly mentally unstable” on very fanciful, speculative and unsubstantiated ‘evidence’ from a source other than the maker of the allegation. The Respondents relied on the fact that the Police Complaint’s Investigator, Johan Martin Welhaven, in his 28 June 2007 decision at (B/20/616 in the fourth paragraph) gave his opinion that the statement made by policewoman Torill Sorte that Farid El Diwany was “clearly mentally unstable” was ‘neither punishable as negligence nor defamatory. We here refer to the contents of Diwany’s website and the other facts of the case.’ No evidence was provided by Johan Martin Welhaven as to what on the Appellant’s website made him mentally unstable or what the ‘other facts’ of the case were that made him mentally unstable. The Respondents did not add anything to this in court through their counsel. It should be noted that Johan Martin Welhaven on 19 September 2011 became a local police chief in Norway. His decision on declaring the Appellant mentally unstable has therefore been compromised for bias and a conflict of interest, apart from his partisan Norwegian leaning.

The Appellant must have a chance to meet this very serious ‘mentally ill’ allegation at trial: see paragraph 18 of Mr Justice Eady’s judgment at (B/30/699) and which wording is repeated in paragraph (k) below. Torill Sorte herself did not provide any evidence or defence in her witness statements to justify her allegation that the Appellant was “clearly mentally unstable.” The Appellant was entitled to substantiation from Torill Sorte and as she has provided none then her allegation must fail. She was not consulted by the Police Complaints investigator and gave no statement to him.

(g) The learned judge was wrong to make a finding of fact on the scale of publication in her judgment at paragraphs 58 and 59 made on the basis of incomplete evidence when in the last sentence of paragraph 67 of her judgment at (A/3/65) she says:

At best, there has been an extremely modest publication of the article complained of in this jurisdiction,......

On the question of the scale of publication Mr Justice Eady has said at paragraph 25 of the Mardas case at (B/30/700): “It is a matter that should be left to trial. Furthermore and in any event, even if the publications were confined to the Defendant’s figure, there was no basis for concluding that there was no real and substantial tort.”

(h) The figure of the number of hits on the offending article should only be determined at trial with the help of expert evidence if necessary as per paragraphs 25 & 26 of Mr Justice Eady’s judgment at (B/30/700) and repeated below in (k). The Appellant submits that the matter cannot be properly resolved at least until disclosure has taken place. Even if the number of hits on the article were small Mr Justice Eady has said even “a few dozen” hits are “enough to found a cause of action here, although damages would be likely to be modest.”

(i) The fact that Torill Sorte’s [false] “put in a mental hospital” allegations were first publicised a long time ago – in 2002 in court in Norway and finished with [false] “two years in a mental hospital” and “clearly mentally unstable” allegations in 2005/6 - is not in principle “a ground in itself for refusing access to justice” as Mr Justice Eady says in paragraph 33 of his judgment at (B/30/701) and repeated below in (k). Roy Hansen clearly wanted his 2006 article to get another airing in 2009 in the English Google translated version which was the year that the Appellant first discovered the English translation after doing a Google search on his name.

(j) The learned judge has come to a conclusion on the merits of the litigation at far too early a stage. A jury may well resolve the contested issues of fact in the Appellant’s favour and rule that he has been defamed. See the comments of Mr Justice Eady at paragraph 35 of his judgment at (B/30/701-702) and repeated below in (k).

(k) The following extracts from the Mardas case are relevant:

11. In granting permission to appeal, Sir Charles Gray made the following succinct observations:

“ … The contested questions as to the number of hard copy issues and Internet hits cannot be resolved on an application such as the present one.

 Jameel v Dow Jones is authority for the proposition that a libel action may be struck out as an abuse of the process where the evidence is that the extent of publication within the jurisdiction is very small. Is there a real prospect that the Applicant would be able to satisfy the court that this is not such a case? In my judgment such a real prospect exists in the circumstances of this case. I think the instant cases are distinguishable on their facts from both Jameel and Kroch v Rossell [reported at [1937] 1 All ER 725], on both of which the Master placed reliance in his judgment. In my view it is at least arguable that the
Applicant has a reputation in this country which he is entitled to seek to vindicate. I do not think it can be said that this is a case of forum shopping.

The concern of the Master about what he described as the monumental costs of these actions is understandable. However, I consider it to be well arguable that such considerations do not generally of themselves justify the striking out of actions as an abuse. I do not understand Schellenberg v BBC [reported at
[2000] EMLR 296] to establish the contrary; it was a decision on its own unusual facts. Besides it is clearly arguable that concerns about disproportionate costs are best met by suitable case management rather than by peremptory striking out.”

15. What matters is whether there has been a real and substantial tort within the jurisdiction (or, at this stage, arguably so). This cannot depend upon a numbers game, with the court fixing an arbitrary minimum according to the facts of the case. In Shevill v Presse Alliance [1996] AC 959, it was thought that there had been a total of some 250 copies of the French newspaper published within the jurisdiction, of which only five were in Yorkshire where Ms Shevill lived and was most likely to be known.She was permitted to seek her remedies here.

16. The article complained of in the present case has remained on the Defendants’ respective websites to this very day. That fact naturally gives rise at least to a possible inference that there has been a continuing, albeit modest, readership. My attention was drawn in this context to the remarks of Lord Phillips MR (as he then was) in Loutchansky v Times Newspapers Ltd [2002] QB 783, 817D at [72]:

“ … If the defendants were exposed to liability … they had only themselves to blame for persisting in retaining the offending articles on their website without qualifying these in any way.”

17. It is also pertinent to have in mind the remarks of Callinan J in the High Court of Australia in Gutnick v Dow Jones [2002] HCA 56 at [181] and [192] to the following effect:

“A publisher, particularly one carrying on the business of publishing, does not act to put matter on the Internet in order for it to reach a small target. It is its ubiquity which is one of the main attractions to users of it. And any person who gains access to the Internet does so by taking an initiative to gain access to it in a manner analogous to the purchase or other acquisition of a newspaper, in order to read it.

18. In judging in any given case whether there has been a real and substantial tort, in respect of which a particular claimant should be allowed to seek his remedies by way of vindication, it may sometimes be relevant to consider the attitude taken by the relevant defendant. In the present case, Mr Browne places reliance upon the fact that in the International Herald Tribune action a defence has been entered which seeks to justify the proposition that the Claimant is a “charlatan”. He argues that it is singularly inappropriate to strike out an action once a plea of that kind has been put on the record. The Claimant should have a chance to meet it. It is a relevant consideration in determining whether there is any purpose to be served in his pursuing vindication (a point addressed by the Court of Appeal in the Jameel case).

25. I am quite satisfied that it was inappropriate for a finding of fact to be made on the scale of publication on the basis of incomplete evidence. It is a matter which should be left to trial. Furthermore, and in any event, even if the publications were confined to the Defendant’s figure, there was no basis for concluding that there was no real and substantial tort.

26. The Claimant’s legal advisers also take issue with the method of calculating the access to the article via the website. They argue, for example, that another method of calculation should have been adopted which would result in a possible total of 313 hits on the article within the United Kingdom. This would have involved calculating the percentage of visitors to the website from the United Kingdom accessing the music section as a fraction of the percentage of all visitors who accessed that section. I cannot possibly, at this stage, conclude that that is the right way or the only way of
making the necessary calculation. What is apparent, however, is that this cannot be determined until trial, if necessary with the assistance of expert evidence.

30. The Claimant does not accept, either, that the estimate of 27 hits on the article via the International Herald Tribune website can be relied upon. Evidence from Mr Schattenberg was served on his advisers very shortly before the hearing, so that there was no opportunity to investigate or deal with the material in time. It is again hard to resist the submission that the matter cannot properly be resolved at least until disclosure has taken place.

31. The International Herald Tribune argues that “ … there is no necessity to put the Defendants to these costs when the simple answer appears to be that a few dozen people have accessed the article on the IHT website to this date”. A few dozen is enough to found a cause of action here, although the damages would be likely to be modest.

33. More generally, I can also understand the Master’s dismay at the cost and effort likely to be involved in a full scale trial of the issues in this case. As he pointed out, the events took place a long time ago and with the passage of time there may be difficulties in obtaining the evidence that would be required for a definitive outcome. The fact remains, however, that allegations of charlatanism and of lying cannot be dismissed as trivial. Moreover, even if defamatory allegations do relate to events of long ago, that cannot be a ground in itself for refusing access to justice: see e.g. Polanski v Condé Nast Publications Ltd [2005] 1 WLR 637, HL. The author clearly thought the allegations to be of topical interest to the readers. 34. As to the Master’s other concerns, Mr Browne invited my attention to the comments of Thomas LJ in Aldi Stores Ltd v WSB Group Plc [2007] EWCA Civ 1260 at [24]:

“I do not see how the mere fact that this action may require a trial and hence take up judicial time (which could have been saved if Aldi had exercised its right to bring an action in a different way) can make the action impermissible. If an action can be properly brought, it is the duty of the state to provide the necessary resources; the litigant cannot be denied the right to bring a claim (for which he in any event pays under the system which operates in England and Wales) on the basis that he could have acted differently and so made more efficient use of the court’s resources. … The problems which have arisen in this case should have been dealt with through case management.”

35. It is plainly desirable that some sensible accommodation should be reached, so as to avoid a time-consuming and expensive trial, but that is in the hands of the parties. I am satisfied that the circumstances here cannot be characterised as an abuse of process: nor can it be said that it is appropriate to come to a conclusion on the merits of the litigation, at this early stage, on the basis that a jury would be perverse to resolve the contested issues of fact in the Claimant’s favour or to find that he has been defamed.

Heidi Schøne has been a registered mental patient since 1988

18. The principal source of the information to the Norwegian newspapers in nineteen articles over 12 years, Heidi Schøne, is in fact herself a registered mental patient having been an in-patient at the Buskerud Psychiatric Hospital in Lier, Norway for several weeks in Autumn 1988 following a second suicide attempt in connection with abuse from the father of her first child. In 2003 her hospital psychiatrist Dr Petter Broch testified in Drammen Court that she suffered from an “enduring personality disorder initiated in her adolescence” and that she had “a tendency to sexualise her behaviour” and had been abused by almost her entire family. At the time of the civil libel case in 2003 Heidi Schøne was on a 100% disability pension for mental disorder. See Appellant’s Court of Appeal papers to Norwegian Court of Appeal at paragraph 15 at (B/1/440). From 1995 Heidi Schøne constantly sexualised the Appellant’s behaviour along with her press which accusations had absolutely no basis in reality. Ironic when one looks at the sexual history of Heidi Schøne whose own youth was dominated by casual sexual encounters. Indeed, the leading Norwegian broadsheet Aftenposten describes Norway as world leaders in casual sex at (B/21/645)

Learned judge wrong to say that Appellant’s campaign articles and website in response to the above was “harassment” of Heidi Schøne.
What did the Appellant’s ‘harassment’ articles consist of?

19. The learned judge has said at paragraph 71 of her judgment at (A/3/66) that the evidence that the Appellant has “harassed” Heidi Schøne is “overwhelming”. She was wrong to say this as the campaign articles were justified comment in response to libellous newspaper allegations.

20. It should be noted that out of the 19 Norwegian newspaper articles printed on the Appellant over 12 years none of the newspapers ever printed his response and only one – Aftenposten in 2002 - informed him beforehand that an article was to be written about him. In some cases the Appellant did not discover the existence of an article for months or years. The Appellant’s information campaign was extensive but cannot rightly be called “overwhelming harassment” as in the UK a right to reply is a fundamental right under article 10 of the ECHR. The Appellant was determined to teach the newspapers in Norway a lesson for ignoring their self-regulatory rules of being obliged to contact a subject both before and after an article was published and to publish a reply. These rules were flouted completely in the Appellant’s case.

21. The Appellant’s campaign articles and website (each giving the Appellant a conviction for “harassment”) initiated in response to the newspaper harassment/Heidi Schøne’s harassment of the Appellant are listed below. It must be noted however that these articles were produced and sent out from 1995 onwards. There was no evidence of harassment for the previous 13 years of ‘sex-terror’ as repeatedly alleged in the press, other than on Heidi Schøne’s uncorroborated word. Heidi Schøne herself had been a registered mental patient and had had a large number of sexual adventures with many Norwegian men, so to allege that the Appellant is guilty of 13 years of sex-terror is rich coming from her.

(a) Life history in English of the Appellant’s accuser Heidi Schøne at (A/16/228) referred to in the learned judge’s judgment of 29 July 2011 at (A/3/71-73) (although it was a Norwegian language version that was in fact sent out) which Judge Anders Stilloff at Drammen City Court in his judgment of 11 February 2002 declared as truthful when he said ”the information may to a greater or lesser extent have been correct” as per an extract of the Norwegian judgment referred to in the judgment of Sharp J. at (A/3/75 in the last sentence of the fifth paragraph) after Heidi Schøne’s psychiatrist came to court to confirm that the Appellant’s report contained “a core of truth”. From 1995 to 2002 the Norwegian press said the reports had “no basis in reality” for example at (A/22/286 in the fourth paragraph, third line) and that the Appellant was a “mad man”, presumably on the grounds that he had made it all up. The learned judge asked the Appellant in court if there was a judgment in a Norwegian court that his reports were ruled as “more or less correct” and he confirmed by letter to her date 21 March 2011 at (B/29/692 second paragraph) that this was indeed the case. The learned judge did not highlight this in her judgment which is regrettable as to make this important truth prominent and clear would reinforce the Appellant’s position that his comments are accurate and not a work of fiction as alleged in the Norwegian press. The main reason for the Norwegian press to call the Appellant a “madman” and “insane” was therefore without foundation.

(b) Further report entitled ‘Press Release’ sent out in English from 1995 after first newspaper story at (A/17/229-230). How can this be called “harassment”?

(c) Norwegian language report (as originally sent out in 1995) with English box report sent out in Spring 2002 at (A/18/231).

(d) Report entitled ‘The Englishman’s Response to Drammens Tidende’s etc.’ and Norwegian language version actually sent out in response to Drammens Tidende article of 16 November 2011 at (A/19/232-238). Judge Stilloff expressed his surprise this was sent out after the Appellant’s conviction for a previous information campaign. The Appellant told the judge in court that he had a right to reply and had this time not named Heidi Schøne.

Reports (a), (b) and (c) were said by Judge Stilloff to reveal an interest in Heidi Schøne of an ‘erotic character’ by the Appellant at (A/3/75 as per the fifth paragraph from an extract of the Norwegian judgment). It is submitted that this is a perverse interpretation that no proper reading of the evidence could possible conclude, certainly not in England.

(e) Website called Norway-shockers.com set up in 2000 being a whole five years after first Norwegian newspaper articles on the Appellant in 1995. The website is continually modified and updated and has changed much since its inception. It is also called Norwayuncovered.com. A UK newspaper would not be prosecuted for criminal harassment regarding its right to freedom of speech in publishing a like content.

22. It was wrong of the learned judge to say in paragraph 71 of her judgment that the above reports were a form of “overwhelming” harassment of Heidi Schøne by the Appellant, when it was obviously a proportionate response to newspaper allegations that came Appellant’s way in the form of tens of thousands of newspapers sold on the ‘Sex sells, Muslim mad-man label.’ That the Appellant gave as good as he got in Norway by instituting a mass circulation campaign of his own was no legal reason for the Norwegians to convict him of harassment of Heidi Schøne out of revenge for the success of his right to reply under article 10 of the ECHR. The learned judge should have recognised this breach of human rights in the Norwegian decision to convict the Appellant for a leaflet and website campaign. Was the Appellant not entitled to any effective right of reply? The Norwegian way is not the British way: which newspaper in the UK copies the Norwegian press ethic of naming the subject solely by his religion? Or never contacts the subject to get or publish his opinion on vile unsubstantiated allegations before or even after going to print?

23. Heidi Schøne had in 1986 told the Norwegian police falsely that the Appellant had “attempted” to rape her in 1985 as related by the Appellant’s lawyer’s letter dated 28 February 1995 at (A/14/220 as per the third paragraph). But Heidi Schøne made the 1986 allegation a mere two weeks after the Appellant wrote to her father regarding her catastrophic lifestyle. The police did not contact the Appellant or question him over the allegation of attempted rape when he visited Norway in 1987, 1989, 1990 and 1991 - all before the cut off point prescribed by the Statute of Limitations in Norway. Ten years later, in 1996, Heidi Schøne then changed her allegation to “actual rape”. The Norwegian police did not contact the Appellant in this regard. Yet Heidi Schøne’s lawyer in court in 2002 called the Appellant “a rapist” but refused to give him her witness statement on the ‘incident’ as it would “prejudice his client’s case”.  Heidi Schøne has also made a rape allegation to the Bergen police against a Bergen shopkeeper and also alleged that Greek men on holiday tried to rape her at knifepoint. Through her psychiatrist in Drammen Court in 2002/3 she alleged that her stepmother’s father had sexually abused her, her two sisters used “subtle forms of punishment” on her and that her stepmother had “mentally abused” her and that she had a “pathological relationship” with her parents.

Court judgments in Norway impeachable: Renvoi rules 44 & 45

Rule 44 Renvoi: A foreign judgment is impeachable on the ground that its enforcement or, as the case may be recognition, would be contrary to public policy.

Rule 45 Renvoi: A foreign judgment may be impeachable if the proceedings in which the judgment was obtained were opposed to natural justice.

The Appellant’s two convictions in Norway for detailing his side of the story on leaflets and on an internet website, as detailed above, were in breach of Rules 44 and 45 of Renvoi as hereinafter submitted as was the civil court decision in Norway to find Heidi Schøne not guilty of libel. The Appellant argued this in his skeleton argument at the 16 March 2011 hearing but the learned judge made only passing reference to this in paragraph 43 of her judgment at (A/3/61). There was no analysis of the Renvoi rules later.

24. In civil libel proceedings brought by the Appellant in Norway Heidi Schøne had alleged, on her word alone and without witness statements - much by way of ambush evidence on the day of the hearings that, for example, the Appellant had blackmailed her that if he could not “kiss her and touch her breasts” he would tell all her neighbours that her stepmother’s father had sexually abused her and that the Appellant used to call her up to ask “what colour underwear” she was wearing. There was a whole lot more too including writing “hundreds of obscene letters” to her, all of which she said she had thrown away, a written threat to kill her young son (the letter was never written in fact and never produced in evidence), reinforced by alleged verbal threats to kill her son and alleged “staring hard” at her son that she took as a threat to kill him and threats to kill her friends, “family” and neighbours. But the Appellant could not cross-examine Heidi Schøne on any of these allegations as the Appellant remarked to the learned judge at the 16 March 2011 hearing. Indeed Heidi Schøne’s psychiatrist submitted a letter which was read out on the second day of the trial saying that she was mentally unfit to face cross-examination. The Norwegian judge at the Court of Appeal allowed Heidi Schøne to give her evidence but then refused the Appellant the four hours that Heidi Schøne’s lawyer had promised him for cross-examination as evidenced by paragraph 1) of the agreed timetable at (B/9/533) on the grounds that the trial had to be cut short by a whole day owing, if the Appellant recalls correctly, to another legal hearing the judge had to attend on. The judge himself decided to put a few questions to Heidi Schøne and her answers were not referred to in his judgment. The whole point of the appeal was in vain as the evidence of 16 years of sustained ‘sex-terror’ could not be tested, all in breach of the right to a fair trial under article 6 of the ECHR. A British court would find these procedural defects in breach of substantial justice. This was the test outlined in the case of Pemberton v Hughes [1899] 1 Ch. 781: ‘The question is whether there was a procedural defect which constituted a breach of the English Court’s view of substantial justice.’ The Norwegian Court of Appeal had allowed a procedural defect of such a fundamental nature that a British court should not recognise the libel judgment in favour of Heidi Schøne.

The learned judge should have recognised the failings of the Norwegian judicial process in creating an unfair trial in breach of article 6 of the ECHR.

25. A UK libel jury would be very wary of accepting as true Heidi Schøne’s evidence against the Appellant who was added to the list of her many abusers. Yet in Norway, where they do not have jury trials for libel, the judges decided at the Court of Appeal, without particularising in any detail, that what she said about the Appellant in respect of her uncorroborated word for the years 1982-1995 was true. The Appellant petitioned the Supreme Court on 11 February 2004 for permission to appeal as at (B/2/477-503) which, without giving reasons, rejected his appeal at (B/3/504-506). The circumstances giving rise to the Court of Appeal judgment could not arise in the UK as there are procedures for disclosure and requirements for witness statements and rules regarding the reliability of evidence of mental patients such as Heidi Schøne and the dangers of accepting uncorroborated evidence as well as prevention of abuses such as being ambushed on the day of trial with unsubstantiated and new oral testimony. All the Appellant’s pleadings to the Court of Appeal at (B1/427-476) and the Supreme Court in Norway at (B/2/477-503) were ignored in this regard. To top it all a police officer tells the court that the Appellant had been incarcerated in a mental hospital, when clearly he had not. The Appellant was not allowed to continue his cross-examination of Torill Sorte at the Court of Appeal just as the going got very difficult for Torill Sorte. The learned judge should have recognised these procedural failings in the Norwegian civil proceedings by specific mention in her judgment.

26. Under the doctrine of Renvoi as per Rule 45 a UK judge is allowed to disregard an overseas judgment obtained in breach of the normal rules of natural justice and this should have been considered by the learned judge here as requested by the Appellant in his skeleton argument for the hearing of 16 March 2011. The learned judge should moreover have included in her Appendix to the judgment extracts from the Appellant’s appeal documentation to the Borgarting Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court in Norway to enable him to give his side of the story to such dubious and very damaging rulings. The Appellant could never test at any time the 1982-1995 uncorroborated evidence of Heidi Schøne. There must be a measure of proportionality in the learned judge’s judgment.

According to the New Zealand Court of Appeal recognition of an overseas judgment may be denied on grounds of public policy where recognition would offend a reasonable New Zealander’s  sense of morality, but may not be denied simply because the case would have been decided differently in New Zealand: Reeves v One World Challenge LLC [2006] 2 N.Z..L.R. 184, [50] – [67] at (B/31/718-729). The Appellant refers to paragraph [67] of the Reeves case at (B/31/725) and submits that a British view of not being allowed to cross-examine a defendant in the form of Heidi Schøne on such highly damaging, uncorroborated allegations made without a witness statement, and by a mentally ill woman would be regarded as an outrageous injustice. Renvoi rule 44 has also, it is submitted, been breached.

27. Following the numerous salacious and uncorroborated allegations from Heidi Schøne in the press which, when coupled with mention of the Appellant’s religion certainly demeaned the standing of the religion,  then it was absolutely the Appellant’s right to reply by putting her life history out to the Norwegian public by any medium possible, including a website. That the Appellant was convicted of harassment in Norway for these campaigns was a breach of Article 10 of the ECHR as in the UK there is a right to fair comment in reply and for the Appellant to acquaint the public with the girl’s past history and report his response and findings on a website. To recognise the two Norwegian convictions for the Appellant’s response to vile newspaper allegations would be contrary to UK public policy and in breach of Rules 44 and 45 of the Renvoi rules. After a sleepless night in the police cells the Appellant was coerced by the Norwegian public prosecutor to plead guilty to having a website that offended Heidi Schøne otherwise, he was told, he would go straight to prison for 8 months, instead of being allowed to go home on the promise of removing his website. The Appellant pleaded guilty under duress as why after several years of trying to get justice in a foreign land would the Appellant all of a sudden voluntarily plead guilty?

The Appellant was arrested and charged with the offence of having an ‘offensive’ website the moment his Court of Appeal civil libel case finished. The arrest was at the door of the courtroom. This was a clear ambush and repugnant to the British sense of fair play. The British Embassy staff who visited the Appellant in the Drammen police station cells were offended that the Appellant was going to face imprisonment for a right of reply website. These embassy staff were informed by the police chief that they would be looking to imprison the Appellant.

Learned judge wrong not to recognise severe harassment and Islamophobic abuse of Appellant by Norwegian press over a period of 12 years.

28. The learned judge should have recognised (as the Norwegian authorities also failed to) that the newspaper articles provided to her from the Norwegian press (with certified English translations) at the hearing on 16 March 2011 were (i) clearly in the nature of sexual harassment of the Appellant with vile unsubstantiated  allegations of “sex-terror” and “ sex mad man”  and “mentally ill man” and “insane man” (when the source of the information, Heidi Schøne, had herself already been a psychiatric patient with a history of sexual promiscuity with only her uncorroborated word to rely on for her own entirely new 1982 to 1995 allegations made out of revenge on the Appellant for exposing her past to a few of her neighbours after learning she had reported him for alleged attempted rape) and (ii) clearly Islamophobic in content with the constant references to the Appellant’s religion as “Muslim” quoted for example 18 times in the Bergens Tidende newspaper in 1995, and continuing in the press to 2006, providing cause enough to provoke the Appellant into a firm and continuing response by a leaflet and internet campaign targeting Norway which response itself cannot therefore be correctly labelled as his “harassment” of Heidi Schøne, but a right to reply under article 10 of the ECHR. There were in fact 19 Norwegian press articles over a 12 year period on the Appellant from 1995 to 2006, the pick of which are as follows:

(a) Bergens Tidende newspaper article of 24 May 1995 at (A/15/221-222).

Stings:

Headline: ‘13 Years of harassment’

Word ‘Muslim’ mentioned 18 times.

‘Heidi Schøne has been harassed and threatened with her life over a period of thirteen years’

‘…he writes obscene words on the door. The words Heidi refers to are unprintable’.

‘Heidi Schøne has been terrorised by an insane man who she had earlier been friendly with…’

‘…he has made threats on my life…’

‘He has also threatened to kill my family’ said Heidi

‘Erotic Paranoia’ sub-title.

(b) Verdens Gang front page newspaper article of 26 May 1995 at (A/15/223-225).

Stings:

Front page headline: ’13 years SEX-terror’

‘Half-Arab Muslim man….obscene phone calls, death threats…’

‘Psychiatrists think that the behaviour of the Englishman possesses all the symptoms of erotic paranoia: the sick person is convinced that another person is in love with him or her.’

‘Me and my family were threatened with our lives. At one door he wrote ‘Fuck you’ with a knife.’

‘He said that I and my family would be killed.’

(c) Drammens Tidende newspaper article of 27 May 1995 at (A/15/226-227).
  
Stings:

Front page headline: ‘Badgered and hunted for 13 years.’

‘For thirteen years an insane man has been making obscene telephone calls and has been stalking Heidi…The man has sent Heidi more than 400 obscene letters and threatened the lives of both Heidi and her family.’

‘…half-German, half-Arab man…’

‘…threatening the lives of the neighbours…’

‘…threatened to kill her 9 year old son’

‘In 1988 Heidi was sent funeral cards by the man who told her ‘her days were numbered.’ ‘

‘Heidi knows the man’s mother has tried to commit him to a mental hospital…’   

[The Appellant in a recorded telephone conversation with the investigating police officer, Svein Jensen, in Norway in 1996 at (A/21/244-245) was told that they had no evidence for the above other than Heidi Schøne’s ‘word’ which was not reliable according to this policeman].

[For the above three 1995 articles the Appellant instructed a lawyer in Norway to sue for libel but the lawyer, Karsten Gjone, missed the time limits and was found guilty of negligence by the Norwegian Bar Association on 13 January 1999 as per their report at (A/23/288-298).]
 
(d) Verdens Gang article of 7 July 1998 at (A/22/281-285).

Stings:

Front page headline: ‘Impossible to shake off sex-crazed Englishman’

‘…death threats’

‘The Englishman has sent 300 letters to Heidi Schøne so far this year.’

‘Psychiatrists believe that the threatening and lovesick Englishman may suffer from a case of extreme erotic paranoia.’

[The Appellant only discovered this article in 2003].

(e) Drammens Tidende article of 14 July 1998 at (A/22/286-287) and the subject of a libel claim in 2000.

Stings:

Front page: ‘Sexually harassed for 16 years’

‘For 16 years Heidi Schøne from Solbergelva has been pestered and followed by a mentally ill Englishman. In only the last year he has sent more than 300 letters to Heidi and made numerous phone calls.’

‘The Muslim man has been obsessed by Heidi Schøne since she was 18 years old.’

‘The man has previously threatened neighbours of the family with lethal force to know where they have moved.’

‘Psychiatrists believe the Englishman suffers from an extreme case of erotic paranoia.’

[Allegation of 300 letters in the last year withdrawn by Heidi Schøne’s lawyers, The psychiatrist, Nils Rettersdol, quoted in the press on the topic of “erotic paranoia” told the Appellant in a recorded conversation at (norwayuncovered.com/sound) that the press told him nothing about the Appellant and he was not speaking about the Appellant in particular but on the phenomenon generally and apologised to the Appellant when he was sent and read Heidi Schøne’s letters to the Appellant].

Procedural history in Norway regarding Drammens Tidende claim for 14 July 1998 article

It must be noted that the Appellant started off in Norway by issuing a Writ against the newspaper Drammens Tidende, its journalist Ingunn Røren and editor Hans Arne Odde and Heidi Schøne on 13 January 2000 as at (A/25/305-351). The Appellant’s record of the proceedings is given at (A/24/299-304). The first Court decision of 31 August 2000 at (A/26/352-365) was in favour of the Appellant allowing him to proceed to sue the newspaper even though he had used the Press Complaints Bureau (the PFU) to lodge a complaint. The PFU do not look into the truth or falsehood of newspaper statements but only decide whether in general terms a newspaper has the right to publish an article if it was in the public interest. The Appellant did not know that the PFU did not look into the truth or falsehood of statements in an article until after he promised not to sue the newspaper, which he was requested by the newspaper to do in return for them answering his complaint. The judge at first instance ruled that it was still the Appellant’s right to sue the newspaper even though he had promised not to sue them in return for investigating his complaint. The newspaper appealed to the Court of Appeal and won by virtue of a decision on 24 November 2000 at (A/27/366-387). The Appellant appealed to the Supreme Court in Norway on 29 December 2000 at (A/28/388-403). New case law was to be made as the PFU itself was unsure as to its own rules. However the Appellant’s lawyer Stig Lunde had missed the time limits to lodge the appeal which was accordingly dismissed on 16 February 2001 by the Supreme Court at (A/30/414-426). The fact is that many of the newspaper allegations were unproven or withdrawn but as the newspaper was no longer part of the action the judgment of 11 February 2002 did not note the withdrawals in its judgment as against the newspaper’s own libels as distinct from Heidi Schøne’s libels – which for all the 1982-1995 evidence from her amounted to her own uncorroborated word. The only available recording of the actual events in the courtroom was left to the Appellant to note in his record of the proceedings at trial for 15 January 2002 at (A29/404-413) and note in his record of proceedings for 13 October 2003 at the Court of Appeal at (B/10/534-545) and his appeal papers to the Court of Appeal of 13 March 2002 and Supplemental Appeal of 12 June 2002 both at (B/1/427-476). The Appellant requested permission to Appeal to the Supreme Court on 11 February 2004 at (B/2/477-503) who refused on 17 March 2004 giving no reasons at (B/3/504-506). The actual events as per the Appellant’s above mentioned notes of the proceedings are not reflected in the actual judgments which did not record numerous facts that went against the Norwegian participants. The Appellants appeal papers to the Court of Appeal at (B/1/427-476) did accurately reflect events and the evidence submitted in the courtroom.

(f) Drammens Tidende newspaper front page article of 16 November 2001 at (A/19/237-238 in Norwegian original).

Stings:

Front page headline: ‘Fine for serious sex terror’

’16 years of sex terror’.

‘..rape report was made because in her [Heidi’s] opinion an assault had taken place and not in order to provoke the defendant.’

(g) Aftenposten newspaper front page article of 15 April 2002 at (B/5/513-518).

Main sting:

Front page headline: ‘British Muslim terrorises Norwegian woman on the Internet’

[Appellant only discovered this article in 2003 although he did have a recorded conversation with the writer of the article at (B/5/510-512), journalist Mrs Reidun Samuelsen on 10 April 2002 in which she said at (B/5/511 at *): ‘I didn’t know that you were a Muslim…Nobody told me that and it doesn’t matter for me.’ The words are uploaded on the Appellant’s website at norwayuncovered.com/sound].

(h) Dagbladet newspaper on-line article of 20 December 2005 at (B/13/553-559).

Stings:

Headline: ‘Sexually pursued by mad Briton’

‘Half-Arab, Muslim Briton’

‘The terrorising continued right up to 1992. The man was then committed to a psychiatric hospital in the UK. A Norwegian police official who investigated the case explained that it was his mother who had him committed….When he came out again two years later, it carried on worse than ever.”

(i) Dagbladet newspaper front page article of 21 December 2005 at (B/14/560-568).

Stings:

Front page headline: ‘Pursued by SEX-MAD man for 23 years’

‘…a half-Arab Briton’

‘I had a small child he thought should die. In other countries he would have been punished severely for that kind of threat’ said Schøne.

‘The terrorising continued right up to 1992. His mother then arranged for him to be committed to a psychiatric hospital in the United Kingdom. When he came out again two years later it carried on – worse than ever.’

[On the same day as the Dagbladet.no internet article - 20 December 2005 - the hate emails arrived. Some of the senders of the emails made it clear they actually believed the Appellant had been put in a mental hospital by his mother].

Dagbladet journalist Morten Øverbye accepts that Torill Sorte is a liar. Learned judge failed to recognise this important fact in her judgment having had the opportunity to listen to the conversation and view the transcript.

On 12 May 2007 Morten Øverbye, the journalist for Dagbladet who wrote the 20/21 December 2005 stories had a long (recorded) conversation (uploaded onto Appellant’s website at norwayuncovered.com/sound) with the Appellant which included the following:

Farid. I don't know why you put that because, er…. First of all …First of all… Do you admit you have lied about “two years” in a mental hospital?
M.O. No, I wrote up the website on the 20th December that a police officer said so and in the wording …
Farid. And you believe her do you?
M.O. It came from a police officer explaining, er, it went, I think, but it's er….
Farid. No, did you speak to Torill Sorte to ascertain your facts?
M.O. But I spoke to her, yeah of course. You have been harassing her as well haven't you?
Farid. No. I've not been harassing her. I've just been questioning her. O.K. She's been harassing me, by saying that I've been in a mental hospital. Or my mother wanted to put me [in one], or I have been [in one]. Now where do you get the two years from?
M.O. I just told you that the sourcing on the website is, er, a Norwegian police officer.
Farid. So Torill Sorte is the source for the two years, yeah?
M.O. Yes and um, on the bottom of my first story it says, “P.S.!! Also a police woman who led the investigation of the Brit is now being harassed by name on his website.”
Farid. Well it's not “harassing” - it's a right to reply. Do you not understand? I mean, you're a journalist. Obviously my point is that you are a second-rate nothing. You wouldn't get a job in a British newspaper in a million years. Because….
 AND LATER:
Farid. Well, no other country on earth would be so perverse and bigoted as to get their own back….Isn't it some kind of criminal offence to insult Norway by printing the truth about their … certain institutions? That's what it's all about.
M.O. I don't think so.
Farid. Oh, just because the “Muslim man” hit back and put something up [on a website].
M.O. I don't think this is about you being a Muslim, sir.
Farid. Well to me the association…..so why every time print [the word] “Muslim”? Why every time print that? And also there's one article that says I'm….Torill Sorte printing in Eiker Bladet that I am “clearly mentally unstable.”
M.O. Torill Sorte the policewomen says that you are mentally unstable?
Farid. Yeah… “clearly mentally unstable” is the quote.
M.O. She was the person who investigated the case against you. She was the lead investigator.
Farid. Oh yeah, top woman! Yeah, fantastic investigative policewoman!
M.O. Where did she have that thought from? [That I was “clearly mentally unstable”]
Farid. ‘Cos she's nuts. Anyone who say's that I've been two years in a mental hospital when I haven't is clearly a spiteful vindictive bitch and I've told her [as much]. In fact I phoned her up a few weeks ago. She didn't have the guts to speak to me. If it's not true that I've been in a mental hospital, then clearly she's a wicked liar. Agreed?
M.O. (Silence).
Farid. You can't even agree on that?
M.O. Of course I can. If she says you have been in a mental hospital and you have not been in a mental hospital, then she's lying…..
Farid. Yeah, exactly.
M.O. …..That's a no brainer.

(j) Eiker Badet newspaper article of 11 January 2006 at (B/15/569-574).

Main sting: ‘Farid El Diwany’ mentioned in first paragraph (first time ever named in Norway in 19 articles).

‘…obviously mentally unstable…’ says Sorte (at B/15/571 last line).

Constant Norwegian press reference to: “the Muslim man” and deep-seated Islamophobia exposed in Norway by 22 July 2011 killings

29. No UK newspaper constantly labels a subject by his religion as to do so would render it in breach of the human rights discrimination laws and so the learned judge in having the articles before her should not have condoned, by silence, such appalling Norwegian press practice. The learned judge had in front of her for comparison several other Norwegian newspaper articles demonstrating clear Islamophobia in relation to Muslims and the prophet Mohammad at (B/21/638-644) where the Prophet Mohammad has been described by a Norwegian preacher as a “confused paedophile” at (B/21/641 in the first paragraph) and by the popular right-wing politician Karl I Hagen as “a warlord, man of violence and women abuser” at (B/21/643 as per the fifth paragraph). Moreover the Appellant had a German grandfather who was killed in Stalingrad in the Second World War fighting for the Sixth Army. The Norwegian press referred to the Appellant as the “half-German, half-Arab man” which in Norwegian eyes is a derogatory term. The Germans invaded Norway. The Independent on Sunday newspaper did an article dated 2 February 2003 at (B/21/635-637) on the vile sexual and psychological abuse meted out after the war to the children of Norwegian women and the occupying German soldiers. The children were labelled the ‘German whore children’ and their treatment clearly illustrated the kind of perverted vitriol and abuse that a hated outsider can face from the Norwegian psyche. The Appellant faced similar repellent vitriol from the Norwegian establishment. The learned judge handed down the draft of her judgment on 29 July 2011 which was one week after the mass killings in Norway by the Muslim-hating fanatic Anders Behring Breivik. The learned judge could therefore take on board the fact that Islamophobia in Norway was indeed a real problem - as the Appellant’s website and book on Norway had been saying for years. The Appellant believes that the learned judge should not have shied away from mentioning the Appellant’s main objective featured on his website and in his book, entitled Norway – A Triumph in Bigotry (2008) - the exposure of Islamophobia in Norway.

Loving letters from Heidi Schøne

30. Heidi Schøne admitted at her libel trial in 2002 as recorded in the Appellant’s record of the proceedings of 15 January 2002 at (A/29/404-413) that she had had all the newspaper articles from 1995 and 1998 read out to her as at (A/29/408 last paragraph) before they went to print which she said she did not correct and had thus adopted them in their entirety. She had clearly acted in a deceitful manner as it was obvious from her love letters to the Appellant after 1982 that he could not have been sexually harassing her “from the time he met her in 1982” or that he was suffering from “erotic paranoia” as he did not imagine Heidi Schøne loved him as her letters clearly expressed her love for him and her admiration for him as a decent man.

(a) In one letter (typed up version for easy reading and copy of original at A/7/188-200) post stamped 22-08-84 she says at (A/7/188 second paragraph and in original letter at A/7/194):

‘Oh can’t you marry two women…What about marrying an Egyptian as well as a Norwegian girl? Marry the Egyptian one first and when you are fed up with each other I’ll come over and…’

(b) Heidi Schøne sent the Appellant a greetings card in 1984 at (A/8/201-202) saying:

For Someone Special…Anytime, Anywhere…I’ll be there if you need me. Lots of love from Heidi

(c) Heidi Schøne sent the Appellant a letter in 1984 with a red love heart stuck on the back of the envelope (typed up version for easy reading and copy original at A/9/203-207) saying inter alia:

It was vey nice talking to you again! It’s always nice talking to you. You’re such a nice person and you know that too. Have you heard anything from the Egyptian girl recently?’

(d) Heidi Schøne sent the Appellant a letter in (typed up version and copy of original for easy reading at A/10/208-212 ) saying inter alia at (A/10/209):

Thank you very much for your letter and the phone calls! Nice to hear your voice again. I don’t know why but you make me feel happy……I’ve been thinking a lot about you. As you always do or did, you make me think of life in general, about why we are all here, and what’s gonna happen when we die.

(e) Heidi Schøne sent the Appellant a postcard post stamped 9 April 1985 at (A/11/213-215) and signed it off:

Lots of love, Heidi (with seven kisses)

In 1985 Heidi Schøne got pregnant for a second time to her abusive boyfriend Gudmund Johannessen, the one who caused her to attempt suicide in 1984 when he got her pregnant with twins but she miscarried them – she says – on discovering that he had been sleeping with her best friend as well. This 1985 pregnancy was not that straightforward as Heidi Schøne was having unprotected sex with two Norwegian men at the same time: Gudmund Johannessen and Bjorn-Morten. Mr Johannessen and Heidi Schøne went on to have two Aids test each after their child was born as Heidi Schøne told the Appellant in 1986 that due to Mr Johannessen’s recently acquired habit of injecting heroin she was worried that her son might have contracted AIDS. The test results were negative. This action by Heidi Schøne was the background to the so-called rejection of the Appellant by her in 1985 as labelled by Judge Anders Stilloff in Drammen Court in 2002 as the Appellant had strongly rebuked Heidi Schøne for getting pregnant again to such an abuser as Mr Johannessen. The Appellant’s fears proved justified when in 1988 Heidi Schøne again attempted suicide due to abuse by Mr Johannessen. He beat her to the ground in 1990 and the police were called. Facts confirmed as “more or less correct” by Judge Anders Stilloff in his 2002 judgment.

(f) Heidi Schøne admitted in Drammen Court in 2002/3 that she had in the summer of 1988 requested the help of the Appellant and his best friend to assist her against the abusive father of two year old child, Mr Johannessen. Shortly after this cry for help Heidi Schøne attempted suicide followed by a move across the country to stay near her sister followed by admittance to the Buskerud Psychiatric Hospital near Drammen as an in-patient for several weeks.

(g) In the Autumn of 1990 Heidi Schøne sent the Appellant a Christian booklet which she had ordered from England entitled: ‘I dared to call him FATHER’ at (A/13/217-219) written by a Pakistani Muslim woman who had converted to Christianity after serious physical abuse by her husband. Heidi Schøne had become a Christian after being ‘exorcised from demons’ in her words (see Appellant’s letter to solicitor Reg Whittal dated 13 August 1990 in the third paragraph at A/12/216), and she told the Appellant that she wanted to marry a Christian man “more than anything else in the world.” She also sent the Appellant two postcards (which were not kept) from Egersund, Norway where her sister lived saying how nice the name ‘Farid’ sounded and how much her son Daniel liked the Appellant after the Appellant visited Heidi Schøne and her son in August 1990 for half a day.

Strange how Heidi Schøne’s later characterisations of the Appellant were the exact opposite in every possible way of her earlier written statements in her letters. She had also in court made allegations of abuse and assault against the father of her first child as well  as her stepmother, stepmother’s father (sexual abuse) and two sisters. She had no phone for long periods including from 1988 to 1993 so to allege that the Appellant had made thirteen years of “obscene phone calls” to her was obviously not true. The Norwegian judgments constantly ignored this obvious evidence. Not one of these alleged year in year out obscene phone calls was recorded and put in evidence. No previous complaints of obscene phone calls and obscene letters for the period 1982 to 1995 were made prior the 1995 newspaper interviews with Heidi Schøne.

Learned judge should have recognised that responding to vile press allegations cannot be classed as “criminal harassment” and did not entitle Norwegian prosecutors to charge Appellant under Section 390A of the Norwegian Penal Code

31. To be described in the 1995 newspaper articles repeatedly as a “Muslim” who was “insane” and has threatened Heidi Schøne “with her life over a period of thirteen years” and was perhaps “suffering from erotic paranoia” and who had said that  Heidi “and her family would be killed” and that for “thirteen years an insane man has been making obscene phone calls” to her and has sent her “more than 400 obscene letters and threatened the lives of both Heidi and her family” and that Heidi knows that the man’s mother has “tried to commit him to a mental hospital” is quite worthy of a right of reply from the Appellant by telling readers in Norway about Heidi Schøne’s own past. All these newspaper allegations were only sourced from the uncorroborated word of Heidi Schøne, herself a registered mental patient. No evidence was ever offered in court in Norway as to the “obscene phone calls” or “death threats over a thirteen year period” or the “400 obscene letters”. Or, later, the alleged letter threatening to kill her son related by Torill Sorte to the Appellant in a recorded telephone conversation on 22 April 1996 at (A/21/251 from the second quote from the top). And it was a proven lie by the police officer Torill Sorte that the Appellant had been “put” in a mental hospital by the Claimant’s mother as alleged in Torill Sorte’s witness statement dated 22 January 1997 as per the seventh and eighth paragraphs at (A/20/239-240) or put in a psychiatric unit for “two years” or at all as was later printed in a front page newspaper Dagbladet 2005 article. Moreover no evidence was offered as to Heidi Schøne’s allegations of “attempted rape” changed a decade later to actual “rape”. Indeed her lawyer refused to disclose her witness statement on this incident as he said it “prejudiced” his client’s case. It did not stop this lawyer calling the Appellant “a rapist” in court in Norway on 15 January 2002. All this from a woman who was a psychiatric patient herself whose own father had tried to put her in a children’s home in her adolescence and who had slept with numerous casual sex partners in the course of her youth with two abortions to one Norwegian boyfriend, two suicide attempts due to abuse by another on-off Norwegian boyfriend and whose psychiatrist is on record in court as saying she had “a tendency to sexualise her behaviour” and that she had been abused by almost her entire family.

Heidi Schøne waives her anonymity by allowing press coverage

32. The Appellant was convicted in absentia under section 390A of the Norwegian Penal Code in 2001 for harassment of Heidi Schøne as he had named her in his information campaign. However as Heidi Schøne had waived her anonymity by having her photos taken and name printed in her national  and provincial newspapers the Appellant was entitled to name her and reveal her past history. The Appellant did have a lawyer, Harald Wibye, represent him at the Magistrate’s Court hearing (set purposely three weeks before the Appellant’s own civil libel prosecution was to begin). Mr Wibye told the magistrate that the case against the Appellant should be dismissed as he should have been charged under the alternative Section 390 of the Penal Code which gave a defence of justified comment. The judge adjourned to her chambers to consult her statutes and returned little the wiser, according to Harald Wibye, to rule that that proceedings would continue under the strict liability section and the Appellant was convicted.

Learned judge wrong not to acknowledge hate emails sent to Appellant and read out in court were severe sexualised religious (Islamophobic) abuse which Interpol London asked Interpol Norway to investigate in 2006. Learned Judge in breach of article 14 of ECHR regarding discrimination.

33. After the two Dagbladet newspaper articles of December 2005 in which Torill Sorte gave an interview, referred to in paragraphs 28 (h) and (i) above, members of the Norwegian public immediately sent vile emails to the Appellant (such as ‘Sick devil. Go fuck Allah the Camel’ and ‘When you eat pigs do you lick the pig’s arsehole clean before digging in?’) wherein some of the senders actually believed the false statement of police sergeant Torill Sorte that the Appellant had spent two years in a psychiatric unit in the UK. The Appellant had never been a patient in any psychiatric hospital as confirmed by his family doctor’s letter dated 22 April 2003 at (B/7/525). The hate emails are referred to at (B/17/581-591) and were sent by the Appellant to the Brentwood, Essex Police on 12 July 2006 at (B/17/580-601) who in turn sent them on to the Essex Police Hate Crimes Unit at Harlow for onward transmission to Interpol Norway. Interpol Norway did not offer any apology as can be seen in the Essex Police letter to the Appellant dated 23 July 2007 at (B/18/602). All the emails were read out in court to the learned judge by the Appellant but she refused to condemn the emails in her judgment. The emails were recognised as a hate crime by the Brentwood Police as per their ‘Hate Crime * A Menace in Society’ leaflet as at (B/17/578-579) and by the Apellant’s M.P who was consulted on the matter. It seems that it is a hate crime that is entirely excusable from the viewpoint of the Norwegian Police and the learned judge Sharp J. Not worthy of any comment whatsoever. As if it was a total irrelevance. Such it seems is the nature of Islamophobia: too minor and politically inconvenient even to officially acknowledge.

34. Indeed the Appellant now wonders whether the Norwegian Anders Behring Breivik, the Islamophobic mass murderer of 22 July 2011, sent him one of those emails at the time. The Appellant sent copies of the hate emails to the Norwegian Minister of Justice by way of a letter dated 20 December 2005 and followed the matter up on 19 February 2006, 14 June 2006 and  an email dated 3 August 2006 all at (B/16/575-577). The Ministry of Justice in Norway replied to the Appellant on 19 September 2005 at (B/12/552)  regarding the Aftenposten 15 April 2002 article ‘British Muslim terrorises Norwegian woman on the Internet’ only to say his “opinion” was “acknowledged” and no further enquiries would be answered.

Norwegian support for norwayuncovered.com

35. For those Norwegians who bothered to investigate the Appellant’s website with impartiality and care there was solid support for the Appellant’s website as in the five must read email examples at (B/19/603-612). The learned judge had three of them read out to her in court. No comment at all came from the learned judge.

Judge wrong to say in paragraph 72 of her judgment that Appellant was harassing Respondent Torill Sorte as well due to his voicemail phone messages and in paragraph 74 that issuing his Claim was a sign of harassment of Torill Sorte.

36. The 2007 phone messages transcribed in paragraph 12 of the judgment at (A/3/53-54) indicate the Appellant’s obvious frustration at Torill Sorte’s continued escape from justice for her false 1997 incarceration in a mental hospital allegation and for her 2005 Dagbladet newspaper “two years” in a mental hospital allegation for which she conclusively is an “obvious liar”. Even the journalist who wrote the piece in Dagbladet stated on the correct assumption that the Appellant has not been a patient in a mental hospital, “…she’s lying. That’s a no-brainer” as per the recorded telephone conversation referred to above. The Appellant could not even remember leaving these voicemail messages four years after they were made.

37. The Appellant had included in his court bundle for the hearing on 16 March 2011 transcripts of all the (recorded) conversations he had had with Torill Sorte which were from 1996-1998. Before Torill Sorte knew these conversations had been recorded she alleged on oath in Drammen Court in January 2002 that these were harassing phone calls. They clearly were not harassing calls at all and the learned judge should have made mention of the strenuous attempts made by the Appellant through these calls to seek justice with Torill Sorte’s help. With the evidence of these calls it can only be said to be a malicious lie later of Torill Sorte to label the Appellant as “clearly mentally unstable” or to say that his mother had told her that she had “put” him in a mental hospital and for Torill Sorte to be the source of the two years in a mental hospital allegation in Dagbladet.

Voicemail evidence was an ambush

38. However, the Appellant was ambushed by the very late revelation of these 2007 voicemail phone messages by Charles Russell who sent them to him by email the day before the hearing of 16 March 2011 with their clients’ skeleton arguments and played the voicemail recordings in court first thing. According to the case of O’Leary v. Tunnelcraft Ltd [2009] EWHC 3438 (QB) at (B/31/716-717) such ambush evidence should not be allowed as it should be disclosed earlier in order for the other party to have time to prepare a response in conjunction with all the evidence. The learned judge was wrong to include the transcriptions in her judgment. The real harassment was by Torill Sorte, who in telling her national press the lie of the Appellant being in a mental hospital, had committed a substantial abuse of his person and told an unforgiveable lie which resulted in vile religious hate emails. How was the Appellant supposed to forget that and “move on”? The evidence of the voicemail messages was very much a smokescreen and peripheral in the overall scheme of things when seen in the light of the outrageous lie from Torill Sorte that the Appellant had been incarcerated in a mental hospital.

39. For Torill Sorte to then compound matters by saying in Eiker Bladet a month later that the Appellant was “clearly mentally unstable” for calling her a liar and a cheat is evidence of her continued harassment of the Appellant. Torill Sorte should expect a few condemnatory messages which in any event were only left on her voicemail after she refused to speak to the Appellant when on Sunday 18th March 2007 he asked in a recorded conversation for an explanation as to how he was supposed to have spent two years in a mental hospital. Torill Sorte would not explain and fobbed off the Appellant by asking him to write to her.

40. Issuing a claim in the High Court against Torill Sorte is clearly not a sign of harassment of her as per the learned judge’s opinion in paragraph 74 her judgment at (A/3/66). It is a legal attempt to clear the Appellant’s name in the correct jurisdiction for an English translation of Torill Sorte’s, re-published, serious allegations.

Learned judge wrong to purposely quote extract from Norwegian police complaints investigation in her judgment that gives distinct impression that the Appellant had been hospitalised in a psychiatric unit in the UK for two years or at all when he has not

41. The judge has in her Appendix to her judgment at (A/3/80-81), cherry-picked from a Norwegian Police Complaints Investigation decision dated 19 June 2007 the following quote:

The complaint against Police Inspector Torill Sorte    
The information that El Diwany's mother helped to have him committed to a psychiatric institution was previously made public at Drammen District Court. In conjunction with that case, the Public Prosecution Authority did not find any reason to prosecute Police Inspector Sorte for perjury. The statements of Police Inspector Sorte were also investigated by the Special Police Investigation Commission (SEFO), who found it proven that no offence had taken place pursuant to Section 121 and sub-section 1 of Section 325 of the Norwegian Penal Code. We therefore cannot find any reason to reopen the case in relation to breach of confidentiality. The only question that remains is thus whether the contents of the articles in Dagbladet and Eiker Bladet are grounds to suspect Police Inspector Sorte of gross negligence in the performance of her duties.
…
With respect to the comment to Eiker Bladet that El Diwany is clearly mentally unstable, we consider it neither punishable as negligence nor defamatory. We here refer to the contents of El Diwany's website and the other facts of the case.
The Bureau has decided that on the basis of the above, there do not appear to be any grounds to investigate further whether Police Inspector Sorte has been guilty out [sic] any punishable offence in terms of her statements in the three articles referred to.

Decision
The case against Police Inspector Torill Sorte, Dagbladet and Eiker Bladet will be dropped, as there are no reasonable grounds for investigating whether any punishable offences have been committed; cf. the first subsection of Section 224 of the Criminal Procedure Act.

42. The decision by the judge to quote the above wording in her Appendix will clearly make people believe that the Appellant has been hospitalised when the learned judge has seen his family doctor’s letter stating categorically that he has never been a patient in any psychiatric hospital at any time. The learned judge has made mention in paragraph 29 of her judgment of this family doctor’s letter dated 22 April 2003 refuting any incarceration in a mental hospital. So the inclusion of the above extract from Norway is decidedly an aberration of major proportions since it creates a conflict in the minds of the public reading the judgment. The learned judge should have made it absolutely clear that the “information” on incarceration in a mental hospital that was made “public” in Norway was not true as the Appellant has never in fact been a patient in any psychiatric hospital. The Appellant provided a copy of his letter to his family doctor dated 22 April 2003 indicating that the letter of reply from his family doctor was in direct response to Torill Sorte’s mental hospital allegations. When Torill Sorte told the court in Drammen in 2002 that the Appellant’s mother had told her that she had “put” him in a mental hospital he called her a liar. In 2003 he had the chance to cross-examine her on this point in his appeal. This can hardly make the Appellant’s appeal an ‘abuse of process’ in the Norwegian courts as stated by the Norwegian judge in his Court Of Appeal judgment quoted in the learned judge’s judgment.

The Appellant did not threaten to kill a child

43. Besides which the Appellant had an absolute right to appeal against the inference in the Norwegian libel judgment of 11 February 2002 that he had threatened to kill a child, was an alleged writer of hundreds of obscene letters and maker of 13 years of obscene phone calls, a blackmailer and maker of death threats to neighbours and family of Heidi Schøne. The evidence for which came solely from the uncorroborated word of Heidi Schøne. The Norwegian libel judgment of 11 February 2002 declared: 

 “Following an overall assessment the court has concluded that the information, opinions and formulations for which Schøne is responsible are essentially true and are not inappropriate.”

as quoted in the learned British judge’s judgment at (A/3/75 in the last paragraph).

44. The Appellant produced his family doctor’s letter in Drammen Court in October 2003 to Torill Sorte and asked her how his mother could have told her that he had been “put” in a mental hospital when he had not in fact been in one. She replied that his mother had told her this. So the Appellant asked her on what date and what time his mother told her that she had put him in a mental hospital, who called who and did she have any notes or attendance record as to the ‘fact’ of the conversation.  Torill Sorte replied that she “could not remember” when the conversation took place or who phoned who and that she had no attendance notes. The fact is that the maker of this allegation, Police Officer Torill Sorte, the Respondent, so very obviously lied to the Drammen Court. The specially appointed Norwegian judge, Jan Morten Svendgard, who later investigated the Appellant’s complaint as well as the Appellant’s mother’s complaint at (B/4/507-509) spoke to his mother who told him that Torill Sorte had made the whole thing up and the judge then reported this to the police complaints investigator Johan Martin Welhaven who decided that there was “not enough evidence” to prosecute Torill Sorte for perjury. It should be noted that Torill Sorte was not even contacted or questioned by the Police Complaint’s Investigator.

45. Mr Welhaven was appointed police chief to Vestoppland district in Norway on 16 September 2011 and his local press then did two stories on 20 and 21 September 2011 featuring and promoting another of the Appellant’s websites detailing Islamophobia in Norway and Johan Martin Welhaven’s part in it, in the light of the killings in Norway by Muslim-hater Anders Behring Breivik on 22 July 2011. Johan Martin Welhaven refused to condemn the religious hate emails which were part of his remit to investigate which Interpol Norway had passed on to him.

46. Torill Sorte’s Eiker Bladet newspaper allegation of 11 January 2006 that the Appellant was “clearly mentally unstable” (the main libel in the Appellant’s claim) is inextricably linked to her comments in Dagbladet newspaper on 20 and 21 December 2005 that the Appellant had been a patient in a mental hospital for two years, which is something some members of the Norwegian public also believed as was made clear from the hate emails. The journalist who wrote the article, Morten Øverbye made it quite clear to the Appellant in a recorded conversation later that Torill Sorte was the source for the “two years in a mental hospital” quote and told the Appellant that if he had not been a patient in a mental hospital for two years then Torill Sorte is “…lying. That’s a no brainer.” When the Appellant blogged on Norwegian newspaper websites in 2005 that Torill Sorte was a liar and a cheat for swearing on oath in Drammen Court in 2002 and 2003 and in a witness statement in 1997 (which the Appellant did not see for 5 years) that his mother had told her she had “put” him in a mental hospital, Torill Sorte then told Eiker Bladet on 11 January 2006 at (B/15/570 in the last sentence):

“I deal with it and know that I did not do anything wrong in the matter. Not even an internal enquiry revealed anything wrong.”

and that to call her a liar and a cheat was an indication that the Appellant was “clearly mentally unstable.”

The learned judge was wrong to imply that there had been a fair investigation into the Appellant’s complaints against Torill Sorte’s perjury by saying that his complaints on Torill Sorte’s allegations of mental instability had been “considered and rejected” which reinforces the impression that Torill Sorte was telling the truth that he had been a patient in a psychiatric hospital for two years and was also mentally ill although no evidence as to why the Appellant is allegedly mentally ill has ever been provided by the very partisan Norwegian authorities.

47. An essential element in any investigation of a complaint is to consult the parties involved. The Police Complaints investigator in Norway in 2007, Johan Martin Welhaven, (appointed a police chief in 2011), did not even contact Torill Sorte who made the allegation or the two journalists who printed the allegations or the Appellant’s mother! He also condoned the hate emails he was asked by Interpol to investigate!

48. In paragraph 69 of her judgment at (A/3/65-66) the learned judge makes reference to the Appellant’s complaints to the Norwegian authorities which had been “considered and rejected”. The rejections consisted of a decision on 15/07/2003 not to prosecute Torill Sorte for perjury due to “no evidential foundation”. This was a get out for the Public Prosecutor’s Office in order to save Torill Sorte’s career and also so as not to render the Appellant’s 2001 conviction for “harassment” unsafe given the “mental hospital rumours” evidence given by Torill Sorte at the Magistrate’s Court which hearing the Appellant did not attend. There was ample evidence to charge Torill Sorte not least the fact that the Appellant had not been put in a mental hospital and that Torill Sorte had never explained when the call with the Appellant’s mother was allegedly made and why she had no notes of the time or date of the alleged conversation or who called who. Besides which the Appellant’s mother was furious with Torill Sorte for this outrageous lie and would have welcomed a trial.

49. This left Torill Sorte free to repeat her lie in Dagbladet in 2005 this time alleging that the Appellant had been in a mental hospital for a whole two years in the UK from 1992. The Appellant’s complaint against Torill Sorte for misconduct was again rejected by the Police Complaints Bureau due to a finding that “no reasonable grounds for investigating whether any punishable offences have been committed” as per a report dated 19 June 2007. The same public prosecutor as before upheld the decision, ignoring the newspaper correspondent’s own evidence that Torill Sorte was “… a liar. That’s a no brainer.” Clearly a cover-up of major proportions.

This makes the learned judge’s quote of allegations of mental instability having been “considered and rejected” very misleading in that it lends support to the false assertion that the Appellant has been a patient in a mental hospital.

Res judicata: no re-litigation in fact in UK courts

50. The Appellant is not re-litigating decided issues on this point as he has never issued a civil libel claim against Torill Sorte or Roy Hansen or the Norwegian Ministry of Justice and Police in the Norwegian Courts in relation to mental hospital/mentally ill allegations. He made a private complaint to the Norwegian Police Complaints Bureau and did not waive his right to take civil libel action in the UK, especially as there has been a major miscarriage of justice in Norway. Or is the Appellant just supposed to accept with good grace the implied ‘fact’ that he has been in a mental hospital when he has not and that he is mentally unstable? It is also an anomaly in that the official charged with investigating the Appellant’s complaint against the policewoman Torill Sorte, Johan Martin Welhaven, has recently been appointed a local police chief which introduces the clear charge of bias, lack of impartiality and conflict of interest. All in breach of Article 6 of the ECHR.

History of the “mental hospital” allegations

51. The factual history of the “mental hospital” allegations conflict in major respects with the picture painted by the Norwegian authorities.

52. The rumours were started by Heidi Schøne in 1995 - herself a psychiatric patient in 1988 after a second suicide attempt related to abuse by the father of her first child. Heidi Schøne said in Drammens Tidende newspaper of 27 May 1995 in the penultimate paragraph, last sentence at (A/15/227 at *):

“Heidi knows that the man’s mother has tried to commit him to a mental hospital,…”.

53. The above allegation was false and the Appellant questioned Police Sergeant Torill Sorte about this on 22 April 1996 in a recorded telephone conversation at (A/21/253 at *) and got his mother to confirm that the allegation was a fabrication by Heidi Schøne who told Torill Sorte:

“Farid wants me to tell you…he wishes particularly at this moment to tell you that I did not threaten to put him into a mental hospital…”

54. On oath in Drammen Court on 16 January 2002 Torill Sorte swore that the Appellant’s “despairing mother” had spoken to her telling her that she had “put” the Appellant “in a mental hospital.” The Appellant’s lawyer reacted by saying: “We have a tape recorded conversation saying the exact opposite.” Torill Sorte replied that she did not know her telephone conversations were being recorded and came up with the excuse that it was Heidi Schøne’s “report” to the police which stated that Heidi Schøne had spoken to the Appellant’s mother and there were some “rumours” of the Appellant being put in a mental hospital and it was this report from Heidi that was “the more accurate account” of the Appellant’s incarceration in a mental hospital. The tape was to be played the next morning in court with Torill Sorte if we called her to attend.

55. On the same evening of 16 January 2002 the Appellant’s lawyer Stig Lunde called Torill Sorte who told him that the 22 April 1996 conversation was followed by another conversation that she had with the Appellant’s mother who said that the Appellant had after all been treated in a mental hospital. The Appellant told Stig Lunde that this was a total lie by Torill Sorte as he had never been a treated in any mental hospital. By this time it was 10pm and Stig Lunde said it was too late to call Torill Sorte to be cross-examined next day and that it would look very bad for the Appellant if she swore on oath that his mother had made a complete U-turn to say that he had after all been a patient in a mental hospital.

56. The tape was played in court the next morning.

57. A 22 January 1997 Witness statement in Norwegian from Torill Sorte was given to the Drammen Court three days before the Appellant’s civil libel trial which began on 16 January 2002. Torill Sorte referred to it in court. The Appellant had it translated into English after he returned to the UK. The relevant words from Torill Sorte at (A/20/239 last paragraph and overleaf at 240) are:

“The author has also been in touch with El Divany’s [sic] mother. She is an elderly woman [62 in fact] who has given up trying to help her son. She says he is sick and needs help. This is something they have always struggled with and on one occasion he was admitted for treatment. His mother could not cope with all the trouble again and therefore just lets him carry on.

Other girls have also been harassed by El Divany [sic] and it was in connection with this that he was admitted for treatment.”

This Witness statement is at complete variance with the reality of events as per the recorded telephone conversations at (A/21/244-280) that the Appellant had with Torill Sorte from 1996 to 1998 which the learned judge was given for the hearing. Sorte did not know she was being recorded and the conversations completely contradict what she has said in her Witness Statement. This should have been acknowledged by the learned judge.

58. Letter from Appellant’s mother to Judge Anders Stilloff dated 22 January 2002 at (B/4/507-509) declaring Torill Sorte’s allegation an “outrageous lie”.

59. Dagbladet online national newspaper article of 20 December 2005 at (B/13/555):

“The terrorising continued right up to 1992. The man was then committed to a psychiatric hospital in the UK. A Norwegian police official who investigated the case explained later that it was his mother who had him committed… When he came out again two years later it carried on worse than ever.”

60. Dagbladet national tabloid front page story of 21 December 2005 and   under the following sub-heading at (B/14/563):

Committed

The terrorising continued right up to 1992. His mother then arranged for him to be committed to a psychiatric hospital in the United Kingdom. When he came out again two years later he was worse than ever.”

61. Letter dated 3 September 2002 was sent to investigating judge John Morten Svendgard from the Appellant regarding Torill Sorte’s perjury in January 2002.

62. Judge Svendgard called the Appellant’s mother and asked her why she rang Torill Sorte. Appellant’s mother said she never rang her but spoke to her only when her son called her to the phone in the course of a recorded conversation he was having with Torill Sorte to deny that she had ever tried to put him in a mental hospital.

63.  Special Invesigation Authority in Oslo (SEFO) report dated 10 January 2003 signed by Judge Svendgard:

“SEFO had been in contact with the Complainant’s mother and the Complainant’s mother denied to the undersigned that she said anything like the subject of the complaint stated in her own report and in Court. The case appears to be one party’s word against the other’s as far as this is concerned, and further investigation with a possible interview with the complainant’s mother cannot be expected to clarify this situation sufficiently for it to be possible to institute a prosecution for making a false statement.”

64. Fax from Appellant to Judge Svendgard dated 12 April 2003 at (B/8/526) questioning judge’s refusal to take matter further in the face of overwhelming evidence.

65. Letter from Appellant to his family doctor dated 12 April 2003 at (B/7/521-524) relating the Norway saga and asking GP to write a ‘To Whom it May Concern’ letter explaining that the Appellant has never been treated or incarcerated in a mental hospital.

66. Letter from family doctor dated 22 April 2003 at (B/7/525) explaining that the Appellant’s medical records show categorically that he has never had treatment in a psychiatric hospital.

67. Appellant’s appeal dated 25 April 2003 against Judge Svendgard’s decision not to recommend prosecution of Torill Sorte, when judge was sent a copy of Appellant’s family doctor’s letter of 22  April 2003.

68. Oslo Public Prosecutor’s office decision dated 27 February 2003 at (B/6/519-520) only received on 29 April 2003 when Appellant’s appeal for Torill Sorte to be prosecuted was dismissed due to “lack of evidence of legal wrongdoing” of Torill Sorte.

69. Appellant appealed against above decision.

70. Oslo Public Prosecutor’s office decision dated 15 July 2003 at (B/11/547) rejecting appeal on following grounds:

“The report regards a testimony given by Sorte to Drammen District Court in January 2002 where she explained that the plaintiff’s mother, during a telephone conversation, told her that the plaintiff had been hospitalized at a mental clinic. The plaintiff’s mother has informed Sefo’s chief executive that she has never said this. The disputed information is dealt with in the reported person’s own report of January 22 1997, and the telephone conversation might possibly have taken place before this date. There are conflicting statements and based upon the existing information there is evidently no evidential foundation to charge for perjured statement, nor is there any foundation for assuming that further investigation will reveal information of vital importance to the prosecution. Consequently the appeal is dismissed.”

71. Appellant’s response to Public Prosecutor, Anne Grostad, dated 1 September 2003 at (B/11/546) accusing her of a cover up as there was overwhelming evidence to enable a prosecution.

72. Norwegian Bureau for the Investigation of Police Affairs report dated 19 June 2007 at (B/20/614-619) accompanied by covering letter dated 28 June 2007 by Deputy Director Johan Martin Welhaven [who on 16 September 2011 was appointed Chief of Police for Vestoppland District in Norway] into Appellant’s complaint against Dagbladet and Eiker Bladet newspapers for promoting religious hatred by calling the Appellant “a Muslim” which in the case of Dagbladet produced the hate emails referred to Interpol and complaint against Torill Sorte for having given false information to these newspapers that the Appellant had been in a mental hospital for two years and was “clearly mentally unstable”.

Johan Martin Welhaven concluded in his report at (B/20/616):

“With respect to the comment to Eiker Bladet that Diwany is ‘clearly mentally unstable’ we consider it neither punishable as negligence nor defamatory. We here refer to the contents of Diwany’s website and the other facts of the case.

Decision
The case against Police Inspector Torill Sorte, Dagbladet and Eiker Bladet will be dropped as there are no reasonable grounds for investigating whether any punishable offences have been committed.”

73. Appellant’s appeal dated 12 July 2007 at (B/20/620-621) which letter is produced in full below:

For the attention of Johan Martin Welhaven
Spesialenhaten For Politisaker
2 PAGE FAX AND POST

12 July 2007

Dear Mr Welhaven,

Dagbladet, Eiker Bladet and Torill Sorte

I received yesterday your letter dated 28th June 2007 and please accept this letter to you as my appeal against your decision on all counts.
I note that your department have purposely not returned my calls, in keeping with the usual cover up that precedes all your police investigations into my complaints.
I note also from your decision that you have not spoken to Morten Øverbye, the journalist with Dagbladet who wrote those stories on me on 20th and 21st December 2005. If you had then he would have confirmed to you that Police Officer Torill Sorte was the source of the (false) information which led him to print that I had been in a mental hospital for 2 years. As this is clearly not the case, then Torill Sorte is an abject liar and has purposely given false information to the newspapers to help blacken my character. Morten Øverbye himself, as you will see from the transcribed telephone conversation I had with him on 12th May 2007, all of which can be read on my website, has told me that, presuming the fact that I have never been in a mental hospital to be correct, then Torill Sorte is a liar. The whole conversation is on tape ready to be sent to you. But speak with him first.

In particular you yourself are in dereliction of duty for not speaking to Morten Øverbye or Torill Sorte or indeed myself to obtain clarification and certainty as to the facts.

Your personal opinion that Eiker Bladet, quoting Torill Sorte, are correct to call me “clearly mentally unstable” is an indication of your complete bad faith and bigotry in this investigation. You say that my website and other facts in the case support the allegation that I am “clearly mentally unstable.” You do not mention which facts and what in particular in my website supports your belief. Reasons must be given. The fact is that if someone like me writes certain home truths about the Norwegian system that upsets Norwegians, then automatically the offender is “mentally ill”. This approach is an age old inbred Norwegian trick. And it is probably the reason why the British authorities have not co-operated with your police in any way over your ardent desire to have my website shut down. In England we call it freedom of speech. Your Police authority's dirty tricks to get me prosecuted and fined mean nothing to anyone over here. What you people have done to me is unforgivable and your people's perverted actions must continue to be exposed on the internet.

Dagbladet, in their articles on me have specifically mentioned my religion and coupled this with slanderous allegations which resulted in those many emails denigrating me as a Muslim and the religion of Islam. Dagbladet have therefore clearly incited religious hatred and it is just another reflection on your inbred mentality that you cannot accept this. The British Police accept that those emails are in the nature of a hate crime and it is deceitful of Interpol Norway (composed of partisan Norwegians) to lie to Interpol London on this matter. That is why I have asked Interpol London to request Interpol Norway to reassess the matter with clarification and explanation.

Please also understand that as Torill Sorte is quite clearly a liar and perjurer then it is my absolute right to have the freedom of speech to say this on a website. It is not harassment of her. Just as I have the same right to express my side of the story on the mental patient Heidi Schøne. You will see in any case I have support for my views from others whose contributions are quoted on my website. You people establish a whole series of falsehoods and build on them to create a sick fantasy. The world deserves a website such as mine to see the scale of bigotry and hatred that exists in your country.
I look forward to hearing from you on this appeal.

Yours sincerely,
Farid El Diwany

74. Appellant’s letter of 18 July 2007 to Johan Martin Welhaven at (B/20/623-626) enclosing disc of recorded telephone conversation with Dagbladet journalist Morten Øverbye  calling Torill Sorte, “…a liar. That’s a no-brainer.”

75. Reply of Johan Martin Welhaven dated 17 August 2007 at (B/20/628-632):

 “The Special Unit sees no reason to reconsider the prosecution decision on the basis of what is stated in the appeal.”

76. Memorandum of Response from Director of Public Prosecutions, Anne Grostad dated 5 November 2007 at (B/20/633-634) saying: “No grounds have been found for reversing decision not to proceed with case.”

Learned judge wrong not to record Appellant’s explanation for other extracts she quoted from Norwegian judgments in the Appendix to her judgment beginning at (A/3/68).

77. (a) Regarding the extract at (A/3/69) entitled:

(II) 11 FEBRUARY 2002: DISMISSAL BY THE DRAMMEN DISTRICT COURT OF THE CLAIMANT’S DEFAMATION CLAIM AGAINST MS SCHONE

there are a number of 1995 postcards sent by the Appellant to Heidi Schøne quoted to indicate “harassment”. But it was not gratuitous. The 27 February 1995 postcard at (A/3/70) was written when the Appellant had spoken to Runar Schøne who made some crass remarks to the Appellant in his very poor English, when the Appellant was speaking to Heidi Schøne about past events in Norway which included a 1990 allegation that she thought the Appellant wanted to “kidnap” her son and over which the Appellant had long wanted an explanation for. The 7 and 8 April 1995 postcards at (A/3/70) were written when the Appellant was spoken to in such lewd and abusive terms by Heidi Schøne that he thought that she had reverted to her old sexualised self and so decided to remind her of the result of her disastrous sexual past. The 7 and 8 April 1995 postcards were written after phoning Heidi Schøne to protest when the Appellant had just discovered by receipt of his Bergen lawyer’s letter of 28 February 1995 at (A/14/220) of Heidi Schøne’s 1986 allegation of “attempted rape” to the police in Bergen which was the first time the Appellant had heard of this allegation. Even though it was an old allegation it was still a shock as it was a real attempt to ruin the Appellant and so duplicitous an act, as in 1988 she had begged for the Appellant’s and his best friend’s help to restrain her abusive boyfriend Gudmund Johannessen, (which she admitted to in Drammen Court in 2003). Also the Appellant was told by Runar Schøne (Heidi Schøne’s husband): “Allah doesn’t exist. Come to Jesus only he can save you” followed by a five minute speaking in tongues rant which in court in 2003 he admitted to as “babbling” as per Appellant’s report of proceedings at (A/29/410 in third paragraph). At the 13 January 2002 libel trial in Norway Runar Schøne, the ex-husband of Heidi Schøne compared the Appellant to Osama Bin Laden as recorded in the Appellant’s record of the proceedings at (A/29/410 in the fourth paragraph) and that he would have liked to have gone to London to “kill” the Appellant at (A/29/410 in the fifth paragraph).

78. The Appellant was so angry with Heidi Schøne’s attitude and her lack of an apology for the false “attempted rape” allegation that he did send an account to several of her neighbours of her own past sexual history, which a local newspaper got hold of, could not believe was true, especially as Heidi Schøne denied it all, resulting in a very partisan press calling the Appellant “insane” and “Muslim” etc. It took a further seven years for a Norwegian court to vindicate the Appellant by ruling that his account of Heidi Schøne’s life history was more or less correct as at (A/3/75 in the last sentence of the fifth paragraph). But as soon as the newspapers came out in May 1995 and they refused to print a response the Appellant contends that he then had total justification for informing the public of his accuser’s past history. The newspapers continued their diatribe so the Appellant continued his campaign of informing the public of his accuser’s lurid past.

79. The letter of 17 November 1997 at (A/3/73) to Heidi Schøne was written by the Appellant the minute he was told by Torill Sorte that Heidi Schøne still maintained that the Appellant had threatened to “kill” her son “in a letter” even though no letter had been found after extensive police enquiries over the previous year. Moreover the letter of 17 November 1997 did not reach Heidi Schøne, as the Appellant well knew it would not, as all her post was diverted by the police to stop other members of the public writing in to her enquiring as to the Appellant’s information campaign. The Appellant wrote the letter to let the police know his frustrations. The police put it in evidence to the court as if it had actually been received by Heidi Schøne. The Appellant happened to like Heidi Schøne’s son very much indeed and later she told the Drammen Court that the Appellant had told her that her son was “a bastard and bastards don’t deserve to live” which the Norwegian judge noted in his 2002 judgment - but as the Appellant denied ever saying this then it should not have been mentioned in the judgment. The Appellant pointed out to Heidi Schøne in his letter the irony of her situation in that she had actually killed her own unborn children (by abortions). Heidi Schøne then in 2005 in a front page article in Dagbladet newspaper article said that she had a young son the Appellant thought “should die” at (B/14/561 in the last paragraph). She was, in the Appellant’s opinion, a criminal delinquent. To be denied the right to put the Appellant’s side of the whole story on a website is against his Article 10 ECHR rights. The fact is that his website leaves out nothing and mentions everything that is said against him with one important saving – that no where on the actual website was the Appellant’s name mentioned. The website is a comprehensive record of events and the placement of articles on it from the Norwegian newspapers is hardly meant to indicate that the Appellant endorses the allegations made in them.

80. It is the Appellant’s above account that should be related in the judge’s Appendix to her judgment to give an accurate picture of the reality of the events, which clearly the Norwegian judgments had failed to do. If the learned British judge is going to include extracts from Norwegian judgments then as the allegations are so serious it should be made quite clear, by including extracts from the Appellant’s appeal papers to the Norwegian courts, that the Appellant did not for one moment think that the judgment should be allowed to stand as being a huge miscarriage of justice. It is only fair that the Appellant’s side of the story is accounted for in the judgment which is well within the spirit of Rule 45 of the Renvoi doctrine.

81. The learned judge in choosing to quote particular passages from the Norwegian judgments in the Appendix to her judgment is thereby engaging in an assessment of the merits of the Norwegian litigation. In doing so she has ignored her duty to comment on the more obvious defects in the way the Norwegian judgments were arrived at: that they were not made in accordance with the evidence as the judges arrived at mistaken legal and factual conclusions. The learned British judge is under a duty to ensure that the Appellant is not unfairly prejudiced by her use of clearly misleading passages from Norwegian judgments in the Appendix and other quotes elsewhere in her judgment.

The learned judge was wrong to state at paragraph 33 of her judgment (A/3/59) that the Appellant was at fault for not writing a letter before claim to Torill Sorte.

82. One does not have to write a letter before claim if it serves no purpose. Torill Sorte would have ignored the letter. For one who lies so blatantly that the Appellant has been a patient in a mental hospital does anyone imagine that a letter before claim would achieve anything in the way of a settlement of the claim at an early stage? A letter before claim to Roy Hansen at (B/22/646-648) was sent.

The judge should explain exactly why  the Appellant thought the ECHR was biased regarding his Application in 2004 against Norway as per the quote in her judgment in paragraph 42 at (A/3/61)

83. The Appellant’s 2004 application to the ECHR regarding a libel claim over the 1998 Norwegian newspaper Drammens Tidende was rejected at the first stage in 2006 with no reasons given. Having a Norwegian judge at Strasbourg vote for Norway against the Appellant in his claim against Norway does raise the question of bias. The Norwegian judge was working in Norway almost the entire time that the newspapers were doing stories on the Appellant. He would not like reading in an Application that his own country had serious procedural legal defects and undoubted religious prejudice. The Application to the ECHR related to a 1998 newspaper article and Heidi Schøne’s part in it and preceded the 2005 and 2006 newspaper allegations made by Torill Sorte repeated in English in 2009 on the internet. For the learned judge to quote that the Appellant thought the ECHR was “biased” without a word of explanation trivialises the matter and demeans the Appellant.

Learned judge was too casual in her analysis of allegation of harassment accusations in Particulars of Claim.

84. The words used in the Eiker Bladet internet article, “harassment” and “harassed” (paragraph 4 a) in the Particulars of Claim at A/4/90), gives no clue to readers anywhere that the alleged ‘harassment’ was in fact a large information campaign of the Appellant’s in response to vast newspaper provocation. A minor campaign really when compared to the tens of thousands of newspapers sold reviling the Appellant. And a website (started five years after the first newspaper articles came out) initiated in order to combat vile mental, sexualised and religious abuse instigated by a registered mental patient - Heidi Schøne, a duplicitous police officer - Torill Sorte and a bigoted, third-rate press over a 12 year period, contravening all ethical norms of civilised behaviour and any rights to freedom of speech. Likewise for the two malicious prosecutions and convictions obtained against the Appellant under the Norwegian Penal Code in 2001 and 2003 for this leaflet ‘harassment’ and website ‘harassment’.

85. The ‘harassment’ prosecution of 2001 was only initiated by the Norwegian police after the Appellant issued his libel claim in 2000. Up until then Heidi Schøne wanted to drop the ‘case’ as detailed in a recorded telephone conversation between Torill Sorte and the Appellant in March 2006 at (A/21/246 as per the eighth listed quote “put the case away”). It was only on the insistence of the Appellant that Torill Sorte induced Heidi Schøne go to the police station for questioning in 1996. Heidi Schøne, it is clear from the evidence, wanted out for a whole year. The Appellant wanted Heidi Schøne questioned and charged with attempting to pervert the course of justice. The police, it seems, regarded it as an affront that an outsider had the nerve to hit back and sue a Norwegian newspaper.
Why not prosecute in 1996 or 1997 if they had the alleged reservoir of evidence of 13 years of harassment and sex-terror?
Why were there no complaints from Heidi Schøne regarding the alleged 13 years of sex-terror, death threats to all and sundry, obscene phone calls and letters until the end of the 13 year period? The evidence for which was only her uncorroborated word.
Will Torill Sorte be able to defend that as classical harassment with the meaning the English readers interpret the word ‘harassment’ coupled with her tainted evidence given in obtaining the first conviction, in front of a British jury? The Appellant submits not.
Will a jury in England be persuaded that a campaign by one man against a whole country’s press was really harassment of Heidi Schøne and Torill Sorte, instead of a right to reply and freedom of speech? The Appellant submits not.
Will a British jury accept that a vile, sexualised, religious hate campaign directed against the Appelant by Norwegians in 2005 instigated by Torill Sorte and Heidi Schøne and Dagbladet (saying for example “Sick Devil. Go fuck Allah the Camel” and “When you eat pigs do you lick a pig’s arsehole clean before digging in?”) was justified as a reasonable response to the Appellant’s protests of innocence? Which Interpol was asked to investigate by the Essex Police Hate Crimes Unit. The Appellant submits not.

In paragraph 68 of her judgment at (A/3/65) the learned judge was wrong to record that the Appellant  voluntarily acknowledged guilt for having a website when convicted in Norway for harassment.

86. As explained in the Appellant’s letter of correction to the learned judge dated 9 August 2011 at point 15 at (B/28/687) there was a stark choice given to the Appellant (by way of ambush once the civil trial had finished in October 2003) by the Norwegian police prosecutors of either pleading guilty to website harassment and throwing himself at the mercy of the judge who would be “likely” to let him leave the country, or going straight to prison for website harassment. Under obvious duress the Appellant pleaded guilty after a sleepless night in the cells. A voluntary U-turn by the Appellant would make no sense after all the trouble he took to litigate in Norway. The Appellant only expressly “acknowledged guilt” “freely” under duress in the Magistrate’s Court in Norway to avoid an immediate custodial sentence of 8 months in prison. Such a conviction cannot be recognised under Rule 44 of the Renvoi doctrine.

It was wrong of the judge not to acknowledge that Torill Sorte had withdrawn one of her libels as per the one mentioned in paragraph 4 b) of the Appellant’s Particulars of Claim or to acknowledge that the Respondents skeleton arguments recognised the fact of amicable relations until 1996 which conclusively undermined the Norwegian civil judgment of 2003.

87.  It was stated in paragraph 2 of the Appellant’s Skeleton Arguments dated 14 March 2011, that the Appellant had in fact received many loving letters from Heidi Schøne from the time he met her in 1982 (which Torill Sorte omitted to mention in Eiker Bladet’s offending article) - see for example the correspondence at (A/7/188-200 & A/8/201-202 & A/9/203-207 & A/10/208-212 & A/11/213-215) (which correspondence Torill Sorte had known about for years) meaning that the Appellant could not possibly have:

 “…bothered Heidi Schøne and her family since 1982…” as alleged by Sorte.

Torill Sorte, had in effect withdrawn this libel - referred to in the Particulars of Claim as per paragraph 4. b) - by her comment that, as per paragraph 4 in her Witness Statement dated 2 February 2011 written on behalf of the Ministry of Justice at (B/26/680‘B’) [and remembering that the Appellant’s friendship with Heidi Schøne began in April 1982 and she left back for Norway in June 1982]:

 “They became friends. Heidi Schøne and Mr El Diwany corresponded, for some years amicably, after she had left England and returned to Norway.”

Sorte’s actual words in the professionally translated Eiker Bladet article at (B/15/570) were, in the third paragraph, “plagued Heidi Schøne and her family since 1982…” rather than “bothered Heidi Schøne and her family since 1982…” indicating an alleged very immediate, abrupt and serious level of harassment which Torill Sorte intended to convey to the public started in the very year the Appellant had met Heidi Schøne, 1982. Torill Sorte, deceitfully, kept this pretence up by her comments to Roy Hansen, whilst knowing of the existence of Heidi’s letters to the Appellant. As did Heidi Schøne for twelve years in her comments to the press. Heidi Schøne’s letters were much more than ‘amicable’ in any case, for example in her letter post stamped 22-08-84 at (A/7/188 at start of second paragraph & A/7/194 in the second sentence from top) she says:

 ‘Oh can’t you marry two women…What about marrying an Egyptian as well as a Norwegian girl? Marry the Egyptian one first and when you are fed up with each other I’ll come over and…’

The content of Heidi Schøne’s letters totally contradict her later claims of the Appellant’s alleged year in, year out sex-terror and obscene abuse from the time she returned to Norway in June 1982 as she alleged in the press at (A/15/221-227).

Heidi Schøne invited the Appellant to see her at Christmas 1984/5 and stay at her flat in Bergen which he did. She admitted in Court in Norway in 2003 that she had asked him for help in autumn 1988 to restrain the abusive father of her child. The Appellant visited her in Norway in August 1990 when she apologised for causing the Appellant so much hurt due, she said, to being “possessed by demons” followed by her exorcism and becoming a born-again Christian. See a copy of Appellant’s letter to solicitor Reg Whittal of Foyen & Bell of Trafalgar Square dated 13 August 1990 at (A/12/216).  Heidi sent the Appellant a Christian booklet in October 1990 at (A/13/217-219) in an attempt to convert him to Christianity (“witness you” as she told him) as she wanted to “marry a Christian man more than anything else in the world.”

88. In paragraph 9 of the Respondents’ Skeleton Arguments dated 14 March 2011 at (B/26/679) it is conceded by Counsel for the Respondents that:

 “The nature of the relationship between Mr El Diwany and Ms Schøne appears to have been intermittently amicable until approximately 1996,…”

thus undermining the civil libel judgment in Norway in October 2003 that ruled as true that there had been severe harassment since, it seems, 1982. This supports the Appellants argument all along that there was no 13 years of “sex terror” since 1982 as repeatedly alleged in the Norwegian press and by Heidi Schøne, although the amicable relations had in fact stopped in 1995 just before the publication of the  three  May 1995 newspaper articles. The Appellant has always claimed that the Norwegian libel judgment was not made in accordance with the evidence and that on the matter of the appeal to the Supreme Court in Norway that court should have given reasons for rejecting the appeal application and in failing to do so was in breach of article 6 of the ECHR which the learned judge should have recognised under Rule 45 of the Renvoi doctrine.

judgment available on internet reinforces falsehoods

89. When a Google search is done on the Appellant’s name the learned judge’s judgment of 29 July 2011 comes up on the list so considerably magnifying the damage to the Appellant’s reputation.

Grounds of Appeal regarding Claim no. HQ10D02228 against the Ministry of Justice and the Police, Norway

90. The Appellant will not appeal against the substantive part of the judgment regarding the said Ministry as he accepts that he made a fundamental error in not stating in his application to the Master, when applying for permission to serve out of jurisdiction, exactly why the Ministry was not immune from suit under the State Immunity Act 1978: NML Capital Ltd v Republic of Argentina [2009] EWCA Civ.41. The Appellant, a solicitor, is not a litigator but a non-contentious property lawyer.

91. The Appellant will however appeal against one aspect of the judgment
on the issue of state immunity, namely that the learned judge was wrong to rule in paragraph 81 of her judgment at (A/3/67) that:

“…the proceedings do not relate to a commercial transaction or contract at all, but to a claim in libel: see for example, the opinion of Lord Millett in Holland v Lampen-Wolfe [2000] 1 WLR 1573 at 1587.”

Lord Millett’s said at 1587 at (B/31/714 in the first paragraph at the top of the page):

In my opinion the words "proceedings relating to" a transaction refer to claims arising out of the transaction, usually contractual claims, and not tortious claims arising independently [the Appellant’s emphasis] of the transaction but in the course of its performance.

The present case is distinguished from the special facts and reasoning given by Lord Millet at 1587 in Holland v Lampen-Wolfe [2000] 1 WLR 1573 at 1587 on two main grounds:

(a) The Appellant’s libel claim did not arise independently of the “commercial or professional or other” activity of Torill Sorte (as it did in Holland v Lampen-Wolfe) as the Appellant’s claim related to the same commercial etc. activity that the police are always engaged in - being that of exchanging information with the press which information is published and aired in a commercial way. Torill Sorte’s false statement to Roy Hansen of Eiker Bladet that the Appellant was “clearly mentally unstable” was part and parcel of the same commercial activity of exchanging information with the press: inseparable in scope and inextricably linked.

(b) The act of supplying the false “clearly mentally unstable” statement to the press was not performed in the exercise of sovereign authority as Police Sergeant Torill Sorte was engaged in a mad frolic of her own unrelated to the normal police activity of explaining police actions to the public.

The State Immunity Act 1978 would then not exempt Torill Sorte’s Ministry from suit under the doctrine of vicarious liability. The commercial transaction element was the foundation for the libel claim and the catalyst for it.

This was an entirely academic Claim and application against the Ministry of Justice and the Police, Norway as no judgment can be enforced against the Norwegian government or a ministry. It was more about bringing the case to the attention of the Norwegian government on a matter of vicarious liability for an employee out on a mad frolic of her own.

Appellant’s case and Holland v Lampen-Wolfe case compared

92. Mr Lampen-Wolfe, the Defendant, was educational services officer for the Department of Defence of the USA and located at a military base in the UK.
Ms Holland, the Claimant, sued for libel relating to a Memorandum written by Lampen-Wolfe in which very critical comments were made about Ms Holland’s performance of her duties as a teacher of US servicemen/students at the military base, following complaints from the students about Ms Holland’s behaviour.

Ms Holland made a claim for libel against the United States government under the “commercial” transaction head in Section 3 of the State Immunity Act 1978. The context of the case was that of the provision of educational services from a United States university under a commercial agreement with the United States government: Troy State University, an independent public university in Alabama, provided educational courses for military personnel at United States bases in Europe and Asia.

It was decided in Holland v Lampen-Wolfe that the writing of the Memorandum by Mr Lampen-Wolfe was not an “activity” so as to bring the proceedings within Section 3(3) (c) of the State Immunity Act 1978. It was completely separate from the commercial activity of supplying educational services.

In the Appellant’s case the “commercial” activity was the passing of information between the police in Norway and the press and media both in commercial and professional capacities to facilitate the selling of newspapers and radio news and during the course of which libellous/slanderous statements were made by Torill Sorte to journalist Roy Hansen.

Lord Millett said at (B/31/710) the following in Holland v Lampen-Wolfe:

The State Immunity Act 1978

   The background to the State Immunity Act 1978 is well known. It is described at length in the speech of Lord Wilberforce in I Congreso and I need not repeat it in any detail. Until 1975 England, almost alone of the major trading nations, continued to adhere to a pure, absolute doctrine of state immunity. In the 1970's, mainly under the influence of Lord Denning M.R., we abandoned that position and adopted the so-called restrictive theory of state immunity under which acts of a commercial nature do not attract state immunity even if done for governmental or political reasons. This development of the common law was confirmed by your Lordships' House in I Congreso in relation to acts committed before the passing of the Act of 1978.
   In the meantime Parliament enacted the Act of 1978, which gave statutory force to a restrictive theory of state immunity. It did this by means of a number of statutory exceptions to a general rule of state immunity. Thus section 1 states the general rule: a state is immune from proceedings in the United Kingdom except as provided in the provisions of the Act which follow. Part I of the Act contains detailed exceptions to the rule; these are cases where a state enjoys no immunity. There is no exception in respect of actions for defamation. The exceptions relied upon in the present case are contained in section 3, which is concerned with commercial transactions and contracts to be performed in the United Kingdom. It provides:
"3(1) A state is not immune as respects proceedings relating to—
(a) a commercial transaction entered into by the state; or
(b) an obligation of the state which by virtue of a contract (whether a commercial transaction or not) falls to be performed wholly or partly in the United Kingdom . . .
. . .
(3) In this section "commercial transaction" means
(a) any contract for the supply of goods or services;
(b) any loan or other transaction for the provision of finance and any guarantee or indemnity in respect of any such transaction or of any other financial obligation; and
(c) any other transaction or activity (whether of a commercial, industrial, financial, professional or other similar character) into which a state enters or in which it engages otherwise than in the exercise of sovereign authority;
but neither paragraph of subsection (1) above applies to a contract of employment between a state and an individual."
In my opinion, section 3(1)(a) is not satisfied because, although the contract between the University and the United States Government is a contract for the supply of services and therefore a commercial contract within the meaning of the section by virtue of section 3(3)(a), the present proceedings do not relate to that contract. They are not about the contract, but about the memorandum. The fact that the memorandum complains of the quality of the services supplied under the contract means that the memorandum relates to the contract (which is why section 16(2) is satisfied.) But it does not follow that the proceedings relate to the contract, which is what section 3(1)(a) requires. In my opinion the words "proceedings relating to" a transaction refer to claims arising out of the transaction, usually contractual claims, and not tortious claims arising independently of the transaction but in the course of its performance.
For the same reason I doubt that the writing and publication of the memorandum constituted an "activity" of an official character in which the United States engaged through the medium of the respondent, so as to bring the proceedings within section
3(3)(c). The context strongly suggests a commercial relationship akin to but falling short of contract (perhaps because gratuitous) rather than a unilateral tortious act. But even if the respondent's acts of writing and publishing the memorandum can be brought within the opening words section 3(3)(c), they are excluded by the concluding words of the subsection since, for the reasons I have given, they were performed in the exercise of sovereign authority.

The detail: Commercial transaction under Section 3(3)(c) State Immunity Act 1978

93. Regarding the Ministry of Justice’s application to set aside,  the Appellant refers to the State Immunity Act 1978 (“the 1978 Act”) at (B/31/730-736) and Section 3(1)(a) which says that a State is not immune as respects proceedings relating to a commercial transaction entered into by the State. Section 3(3)(c) contains a very wide definition of “commercial transaction” as being “any other transaction or activity (whether of a commercial, industrial, financial, professional or other similar character) into which a State enters or engages otherwise than in the exercise of sovereign authority.” It can be a transaction entered into by the state with a third party. It is not a requirement that the transaction is between the state and the claimant.

94. The acts of policewoman Torill Sorte, an employee of the state, are regarded prima facie as sovereign acts under the 1978 Act and also as the Ministry’s (state’s) acts under the doctrine of vicarious liability. If Torill Sorte is not immune under the 1978 Act, as per the arguments referred to below, then neither is her employer, the Ministry of Justice and the Police.

95. The Ministry of Justice, through Torill Sorte, was certainly engaged in an “activity” as required by the 1978 Act in that Torill Sorte spoke to the press repeatedly about the Appellant, ostensibly in the course of her police duties, which activity was with commercial organisations - the media - which sold newspapers and transmitted radio interviews. There was thus a “commercial” element or connection as required by the 1978 Act. There was also a “professional” element as required by the 1978 Act as what else but “professionals” engaged in a serious vocation do police officers regard themselves as? Torill Sorte was engaged in a professional business, giving specialist advice and supplied official information (albeit gratuitously) to the media which sold their stories for money. Sorte’s activity in the present case was ostensibly part of her job for which she did receive a salary from her employer. She is in effect paid to talk to the media. Public relations/professional relations engagement by the police with the media must be seen as a commercial activity or one of a “similar character” just as it is for any private public relations/information supply organisation. Torill Sorte was engaged in a personal public relations exercise in which she hoped to convince the public that her accuser, Farid El Diwany, was nothing other than a complete madman for accusing her of being dishonest and a liar.

Torill Sorte was not engaged in an act of sovereign authority. She could not avail herself of the defence of entering into a commercial transaction in the exercise of state sovereignty

96. The exercise of state authority means the exercise of legitimate state power or sovereignty. However, Police Officer Torill Sorte’s exercise of state sovereignty (if at all) in ostensibly utilising police powers, by talking to journalist Roy Hansen about the Appellant, was not legitimate; it was ultra vires. Her powers were not exercised under any code of conduct or furtherance of police powers, as the sole reason for her response to the newspaper Eiker Bladet was in order to justify a previous act of gross misconduct unconnected to any police investigation. Torill Sorte did not further any of the noble police objectives of police work and investigations in speaking to the press. Torill Sorte did the exact opposite by telling the press that the Appellant was “clearly mentally unstable” in response to the Appellant having called her a “liar, dishonest and corrupt” but omitting to say that the reason the Appellant had called her this was because she falsely stated in Dagbladet and in earlier sworn testimony that the Appellant had been incarcerated in a mental hospital (for two years as told to Dagbladet on 20 and 21 December 2005).

97. Following the Appellant’s comments on Norwegian newspaper website forums and his own website that Torill Sorte was a liar for her false 1997 mental hospital allegation, she, in her own words had to “ask to be taken off the case because I myself wanted to report the man” (see Dagbladet newspaper 21 December 2005 at B/14/565 ). She was then free to speak to three newspapers (Dagbladet, Drammens Tidende and Eiker Bladet) and the local radio station of NRK (Norwegian Broadcasting) in a private capacity all of which was published and aired in late 2005 and 2006 in Norway. The Appellant was, as usual, ignored by the Norwegian media.

98. Torill Sorte was not in fact acting on any police case involving the Appellant as she states she had asked to be “taken off the case” at (B/14/565) and secondly any “case” that may have existed was that old chestnut of the Norwegian press and police calling the Appellant’s right to reply to national vilification campaigns “harassment”. Torill Sorte was thus, in relation to the Appellant’s claim, engaged in a private, personal act (in speaking to Roy Hansen the journalist at Eiker Bladet) “otherwise than in the exercise of sovereign authority” and so neither she nor the Ministry of Justice are immune from libel proceedings under the 1978 Act. She represented herself as a  police officer to the press. Her official behaviour was not legally sanctioned (see Controller & Auditor-General v. Sir Ronald Dawson [1996] 2 NZLR 278 CA). When one looks at the substance of the information supplied by Torill Sorte and the factual background that gave rise to her interviews with three media outlets in 2006 the activity did not have the official sanction of the Norwegian state and was not a permissible state action. It was unrelated to good policing by the state.

99. In telling Eiker Bladet newspaper that the Appellant was “clearly mentally unstable” and had harassed her personally Torill Sorte, although speaking as a police officer, was not acting under any duty to further police work or police aims. She was not speaking to the press on any matter relating to a police investigation on the Appellant as her comments related purely to the Appellant’s very public accusations that she was “a liar, dishonest and corrupt” for falsely saying that the Appellant had spent two years in a mental hospital in the UK and for similar mental hospital comments in her 1997 witness statement and on oath in court in 2002 and 2003.

Farid El Diwany    

Date: 26 October 2011

IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE Claim No. HQ10D02228
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
BETWEEN:
FARID EL DIWANY
Claimant
and
THE MINISTRY OF JUSTICE AND THE POLICE, NORWAY
Defendant

IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE Claim No. HQ10D02334
QUEEN’S BENCH DIVISION
BETWEEN:

FARID EL DIWANY
Claimant
and
TORILL SORTE (1)
ROY HANSEN (2)
Defendants

SKELETON ARGUMENTS OF FARID EL DIWANY FOR 16.03.11 HEARING

I, Farid El Diwany, Solicitor, of [ ..... ...... ...... .......... ............ .......... ......... .........] will say:

I am the Claimant in both these related cases and refer to my Witness Statements dated 4 January 2011 and 7 March 2011 which contain the detail of my arguments. I am a litigant in person. I am a solicitor but I am not a litigation solicitor and apologise for any inconvenience that I cause the Court because of this.

Please note that all my transcribed conversations (a) with Torill Sorte as per exhibit FED 5 and (b) with Morten Øverbye of Dagbladet newspaper as per exhibit FED 15 can be listened to on my website under www.norwayuncovered.com/sound.

1. Torill Sorte and Roy Hansen claim

The Court’s primary consideration in considering whether to grant Torill Sorte’s application to set aside my default judgment of 18 November 2010 is – Has she a defence with a real prospect of success? I submit not, when the following points are taken into account:

2. One libel withdrawn by Torill Sorte

Torill Sorte did not mention in Eiker Bladet’s offending article, that I had in fact received many loving letters from Heidi Schøne from the time I met her in 1982 - see for example the correspondence in exhibit FED 7 with my Witness Statement of 4 January 2011, (which correspondence Torill Sorte had known about for years) meaning that I could not possibly have:

“…bothered Heidi Schøne and her family since 1982…” as alleged by Sorte.

I see that Torill Sorte, has now in effect withdrawn this libel - referred to in my Particulars of Claim (see exhibit FELD 33 in File 2) as per paragraph 4. b) - by her comment that, as per paragraph 4 in her Witness Statement dated 2 February 2011 written on behalf of the Ministry of Justice [and remembering that my friendship with Heidi began in April 1982 and she left back for Norway in June 1982]:

“They became friends. Heidi Schøne and Mr El Diwany corresponded, for some years amicably, after she had left England and returned to Norway.”

Sorte’s actual words in the professionally translated Eiker Bladet article (as per exhibit FELD 1) were, in the third paragraph, “plagued Heidi Schøne and her family since 1982…” rather than “bothered Heidi Schøne and her family since 1982…” indicating an alleged very immediate, abrupt and serious level of harassment which Torill Sorte intended to convey to the public started in the very year I had met Heidi, 1982. Torill Sorte, deceitfully, kept this pretence up by her comments to Roy Hansen, whilst knowing of the existence of Heidi’s letters to me. As did Heidi Schøne for twelve years in her comments to the press. Heidi’s letters were much more than ‘amicable’ in any case, for example in her letter post stamped 22-08-84 (see exhibit FED 7) she says beginning on the fifth page, second line and then tenth line:

‘Oh can’t you marry two women’
‘What about marrying an Egyptian as well as a Norwegian girl? Marry the Egyptian one first and when you are fed up with each other I’ll come over and…’

The content of Heidi’s letters totally contradict her later claims of my alleged year in, year out sex-terror and obscene abuse from the time she returned to Norway in June 1982. As at October 2003 in time for the Court of Appeal Norway libel trial she herself was a registered mental patient on a 100% disability pension due to ‘an enduring personality disorder’ initiated in her adolescence (as per her psychiatrist) and had accused her whole family of abusing her to varying degrees.

In 19 articles in the Norwegian press on me from 1995-2006 Heidi was described as a completely normal woman. My word was ignored all along.

3. No defence or substantiation offered for “clearly mentally unstable” libel

No defence or justification or substantiation has yet been offered by Torill Sorte (or the Ministry of Justice) for the most serious libel spoken by Torill Sorte referred to in paragraph 4.d) in my Particulars of Claim (see exhibit FELD 33 in File 2) namely:

“The man is clearly mentally unstable…”

This allegation must be read in the light of Torill Sorte’s completely fabricated allegation made in Dagbladet newspaper three weeks earlier that I had spent “two years in a mental hospital in the UK.” See the RWS professional translation (dated 17 January 2006) for the 21 December 2005 Dagbladet article entitled ‘Sexually pursued by mad Briton’ as per Exhibit FED 1 where on the second page, 7th paragraph, the words written were:

“The terrorising continued right up to 1992. The man was then committed to a psychiatric hospital in the UK. A Norwegian police official who investigated the case [Torill Sorte] explained later that it was his mother who had him committed.

When he came out again two years later, it carried on worse than ever.”

The Dagbladet journalist Morten Øverbye confirmed to me in a recorded telephone conversation in 2007, see exhibit FED 15 (the disc for which I enclose) that Torill Sorte was the source for the ‘two years in a mental hospital’ allegation, as per the 9th and 10th paragraphs on page 1. Morten Øverbye also made it quite clear that if I had not been in a mental hospital then Torill Sorte was a liar as per the 4th paragraph on page 2.

In my protests to the Norwegian public I vigorously denied this wicked lie from Torill Sorte and an earlier one from 1997 by Torill Sorte that I had been “put” in a mental hospital. In return Torill Sorte stated to Eiker Bladet that my calling her “a liar and corrupt and dishonest” indicated that I was “clearly mentally unstable”.

How will a trial in the High Court in London help Torill Sorte convince a jury that I have been in a mental hospital for two years, or at all, and am “clearly mentally unstable” for denying this, when the Court has my family doctor’s letter (see exhibit FED 2) stating categorically that I have never been a patient in a mental hospital?

Will Torill Sorte even turn up to a trial knowing that she will be cross-examined on her repugnant lie that she told a national newspaper in Norway that I had been a mental patient in a hospital in the UK for two years?

She should have replied by now by way of substantiation to this ‘mental hospital’ point in my Claim and cannot be allowed to wait until a trial to come up with an answer that will never be explained away in any case.

4. Roy Hansen is not defending my Claim

The Court is in an anomalous position in that Roy Hansen, a co-defendant, has not defended my claim or put in an application to set aside. It follows that my judgment of 18 November 2010 against him on the same facts will stand. It will be necessary for both defendants to defend my claim in order to achieve parity and as this is not possible now Torill Sorte’s application to set aside should not be allowed.

5. Harassment and convictions for harassment

The words used in the Eiker Bladet internet article, “harassment” and “harassed” (paragraph 4 a) in my Particulars of Claim), gives no clue to readers anywhere that my ‘harassment’ was in fact a large information campaign of my own in response to vast newspaper provocation in accordance with my right to freedom of speech under Article 10 of the ECHR. See by way of examples exhibit FELD 3 being my so-called Press Release(s) replying to the 1995 Norwegian press assault. A minor campaign really when compared to the tens of thousands of newspapers sold reviling me. And a website (started five years after the first newspaper articles came out on me) initiated in order to combat vile mental, sexualised and religious abuse instigated by a registered mental patient - Heidi Schøne, a duplicitous police officer - Torill Sorte and a bigoted, third-rate press over a 12 year period, contravening all ethical norms of civilised behaviour and any rights to freedom of speech. Likewise for the two malicious prosecutions and convictions obtained against me under the Norwegian Penal Code in 2001 and 2003 for this leaflet ‘harassment’ and website ‘harassment’.

The ‘harassment’ prosecution of 2001 was only initiated by the Norwegian police after I issued my libel claim in 2000. Up until then Heidi wanted to drop the ‘case’. The police, it seems, regarded it as an affront that an outsider had the nerve to hit back and sue a Norwegian newspaper. Why not prosecute in 1996 or 1997 if they had the alleged reservoir of evidence of 13 years of harassment and sex-terror?
Will Torill Sorte be able to defend that as classical harassment with the meaning the English readers interpret the word ‘harassment’ coupled with her tainted evidence given in obtaining the first conviction, in front of a British jury? I submit not.

Will a jury in England be persuaded that a campaign by one man against a whole country’s press was really harassment of Heidi Schøne and Torill Sorte, instead of a right to reply and freedom of speech? I submit not.

Will a British jury accept that a vile, sexualised, religious hate campaign directed against me by Norwegians in 2005 instigated by Torill Sorte and Heidi Schøne and Dagbladet in 2005 (saying for example “Go fuck Allah the Camel” and “When you eat pigs do you lick a pig’s arsehole clean before digging in?” as per exhibit FED 6) was justified as a reasonable response to my protests of innocence? Which Interpol was asked to investigate by the Essex Hate Crimes Unit. I submit not.

6. State Immunity Act 1978 for Sorte and Ministry of Justice

Torill Sorte, by her Witness Statement of 2 February 2011 written on behalf of the Ministry of Justice and the Police, Norway in connection with my claim (under Claim number HQ10D02228) against the Ministry, by whom she is employed, is only pleading justified comment and qualified privilege as well as abuse of process. She herself is not pleading a defence of state immunity under the State Immunity Act 1978.
In her other Witness Statement of 2 February 2011 written in connection with my claim against her and Roy Hansen (under Claim number HQ10D02334), Torill Sorte does not plead state immunity. It is, in any case, the Ministry of Justice and the Police, Norway which has to make an application to plead state immunity for their employee, Torill Sorte, in order to be able to set aside, on the grounds of state immunity, my default judgment dated 18 November 2010 against Torill Sorte (as a co-defendant with Roy Hansen).

Torill Sorte’s witness statement on behalf of the Ministry of Justice and the Police, Norway means that the Application by The Ministry, dated 22 December 2010 to set aside the Order dated 16 July 2010 by Master Eastman granting permission for service of my claim outside the jurisdiction on the grounds that I have not complied with the State Immunity Act 1978, is in conflict with Torill Sorte’s own later Witness Statements given in connection with both of my Claims. If Torill Sorte is not claiming state immunity for herself as a state employee acting as a co-defendant with Roy Hansen or for the state when acting on behalf of the Ministry of Justice, then the Ministry’s separate earlier application for state immunity for itself (against my claim for damages for vicarious liability) submitted by Christian Reusch must surely fail.

The Ministry’s application to set aside on the grounds of state immunity should not be granted as it has been superseded by Torill Sorte’s own separate witness statements wherein she does not plead state immunity for either of my claims. The Ministry is claiming Torill Sorte is the state as she is an employee of the state: that they are one and the same. Torill Sorte in her witness statement regarding my claim against her and Roy Hansen is not claiming she is the state. Either she is the state for both claims or for neither. Under the doctrine of vicarious liability Torill Sorte’s acts are seen as the acts of her employer, the Ministry of Justice.
The Ministry and Torill Sorte are inseparable for these purposes and if Torill Sorte, in my claim against her and Roy Hansen, is not claiming immunity under the State Immunity Act 1978 then nor can the Ministry of Justice and the Police.

Torill Sorte is not a ‘separate entity’ under Section 14 of the State Immunity Act 1978. So much is clear from the statement in paragraphs 3 and 4 of Christian Reusch’s witness statement on behalf of the Ministry of Justice dated 22 December 2010 and from the case of Propend Finance v Sing (1996-1997) 113 ILR 611 which concerned a police officer and his employer relationship.

Torill Sorte has, in effect, waived the Ministry’s own claim to state immunity by pleading fair comment and qualified privilege in her witness statement given on behalf of the Ministry of Justice and the Police.

7. Commercial transaction under Section 3(3)(c) State Immunity Act 1978

In the alternative, regarding the Ministry of Justice’s application to set aside and in addition to my comments in paragraph 14(a) of my earlier Witness Statement I refer to the State Immunity Act 1978 (“the 1978 Act”) (copy enclosed) and Section 3(1)(a) which says that a State is not immune as respects proceedings relating to a commercial transaction entered into by the State. Section 3(3)(c) contains a very wide definition of “commercial transaction” as being “any other transaction or activity (whether of a commercial, industrial, financial, professional or other similar character) into which a State enters or engages otherwise than in the exercise of sovereign authority.” It can be a transaction entered into by the state with a third party. It is not a requirement that the transaction is between the state and the claimant.

The acts of Torill Sorte, an employee of the state, are regarded prima facie as sovereign acts under the 1978 Act and also as the Ministry’s (state’s) acts under the doctrine of vicarious liability. The Ministry of Justice and the Police, through Torill Sorte, is not immune under the 1978 Act, as per the arguments I refer to below:

The Ministry of Justice, through Torill Sorte, was certainly engaged in an “activity” as required by the 1978 Act in that Torill Sorte spoke to the press repeatedly about me, ostensibly in the course of her police duties, which activity was with commercial organisations - the media - which sold newspapers and transmitted radio interviews. There was thus a “commercial” element or connection as required by the 1978 Act. There was also a “professional” element as required by the 1978 Act as what else but “professionals” engaged in a serious vocation do police officers regard themselves as? Torill Sorte was engaged in a professional business, giving specialist advice and supplied commercial/official information (albeit gratuitously) to the media which sold their stories for money. Sorte’s activity in my case was ostensibly part of her job for which she did receive a salary from her employer. She is in effect paid to talk to the media. Public relations/professional relations engagement by the police with the media must be seen as a commercial activity or one of a “similar character” just as it is for any private public relations/information supply organisation.

Torill Sorte was engaged in a personal public relations exercise in which she hoped to convince the public that her accuser, Farid El Diwany, was nothing other than a complete madman for accusing her of being dishonest and a liar.

The exercise of state authority means the exercise of legitimate state power or sovereignty. However, Police Officer Torill Sorte’s exercise of state sovereignty (if at all) in ostensibly utilising police powers, by talking to journalist Roy Hansen about me, was not legitimate; it was ultra vires. Her powers were not exercised under any code of conduct or furtherance of police powers, as the sole reason for her response to the newspaper Eiker Bladet was in order to justify a previous act of gross misconduct unconnected to any police investigation. Torill Sorte did not further any of the noble police objectives referred to in paragraph 8 of Christian Reusch’s Witness Statement of 22 December 2010.

Torill Sorte did the exact opposite by telling the press that I was “clearly mentally unstable” covering up the fact that the reason I had called her a “liar, dishonest and corrupt” was because she falsely stated in Dagbladet and in earlier sworn testimony that I had been incarcerated in a mental hospital (for two years as told to Dagbladet).

Following my comments on Norwegian newspaper website fora and my own website that Torill Sorte was a liar for her false 1997 mental hospital allegation, she, in her own words had to “ask to be taken off the case because I myself wanted to report the man” (see translation dated 24th April 2006 for 21 December 2005 Dagbladet newspaper as per exhibit FED 1 and the 2nd paragraph on page 5). She was then free to speak to three newspapers (Dagbladet, Drammens Tidende and Eiker Bladet) and the local radio station of NRK (Norwegian Broadcasting) in a private capacity all of which was published and aired in late 2005 and 2006 in Norway. I was, as usual, ignored by the media.

The Dagbladet ‘mental hospital’ story was printed online by Dagbladet on 20 December 2005 and then on the front page of the actual newspaper on 21 December 2005. It was coupled with the reference that I was “a Muslim”. A vicious sexualised religious hate email campaign immediately followed from Norway (for example: ”Go fuck Allah the camel” and “When you eat pigs do you lick a pig’s arsehole clean before digging in?”) and the Essex Police Hate Crimes Unit in Harlow saw fit to contact Interpol in London who passed my complaint to Interpol in Norway in 2007. Little wonder I called Torill Sorte for an explanation and apology (labelled by her as harassment). It took a year for the Norwegian authorities to say no one will be prosecuted in Norway for the hate crime or for incitement to religious hatred. They also excused Torill Sorte any punishment for falsely telling the whole country that I had been a patient in a mental hospital for two years giving no reasons (a cover up and totally repugnant to UK public policy to recognise such a decision following, moreover, a secret decision making process all in breach of Article 6 of the ECHR). Torill Sorte was not even consulted on my complaint it seems.

So my speaking about this vile religious hatred/vilification campaign and Torill Sorte’s part in it on my website is labelled “harassment” by Torill Sorte.

The religious hatred campaign began in 1995 when Bergens Tidende newspaper called me the “Muslim man” some 19 times (see highlighted words in Bergens Tidende translation dated 24 May 1995 as per exhibit FELD 5) coupled with wild accusations of my suffering from “erotic paranoia”. Of course, when I responded with my campaign (see exhibit FELD 3) it was called “harassment” by Heidi Schøne for which I was given a fine in the local magistrate’s court, in absentia, in 2001.

Torill Sorte is still perpetuating the mental illness myth and this Eiker Bladet article on Roy Hansen’s website just cannot be allowed to stand without legal action being taken. To date Torill Sorte has not explained why I am “clearly mentally unstable” in her Defence submissions. She now carefully avoids telling the Court that I was very upset for her enormous lie in telling the national newspaper Dagbladet that I had been in a mental hospital for two years in England. She kept silent on the real cause of my protest and said that calling her a liar, for unspecified actions on her part, makes me “clearly mentally unstable”.

UN Immunity Convention 2004

I refer also to the argument submitted in paragraph 13 of my Witness Statement of 4 January 2011 regarding the United Nations Convention on Jurisdictional Immunities of States and Their Property of 2 December 2004 which is not yet in force in the UK which has not ratified the said Convention. In the UK the State Immunity Act 1978 is the statute used where state immunity is claimed. It conflicts with the said Convention in some important respects. See the quote of Lord Diplock in paragraph 28 of the reported case of British Airways Board v Laker Airways Limited [1985] AC 58 (copy enclosed) as to why the said Convention cannot be relied on in the UK: ‘The interpretation of treaties to which the United Kingdom is a party but the terms of which have not expressly or by reference been incorporated in English domestic law by legislation is not a matter that falls within the interpretative jurisdiction of an English court of law.’

8. Claimant’s plea that Heidi Schøne be investigated in 1996

Further reference is made by Torill Sorte in her Witness Statement dated 2 February 2011 that Heidi Schøne presented herself in 1996 to Torill Sorte to make complaints of harassment against me. What Torill Sorte does not mention for which I have incontrovertible evidence, already supplied to the Court as per exhibit FED 5 on the third page, paragraph eight, in a conversation with Torill Sorte who told me that Heidi wanted to “put the case away.” She did not want to prosecute my alleged ‘thirteen years of sex terror and abuse and threats to kill.’

Heidi wanted to drop the so called “case” against me in 1996 - but I did not want to drop my case against Heidi for attempting to pervert the course of justice, so I insisted that Torill Sorte force Heidi to visit the police station.

I repeatedly asked Torill Sorte to investigate Heidi and to begin with she co-operated. Her colleague Svein Jensen who headed the investigation earlier, thought Heidi was a liar (recorded on tape and his transcribed words are with the Court as per exhibit FED 5 on the first page in paragraphs five and thirteen).

9. Torill Sorte asks to be taken off case in order to speak to the press in 2006

Torill Sorte was not in fact acting on any police case involving my person as she states she had been “taken off the case” and secondly any “case” that may have existed was that old chestnut of the Norwegian press and police calling my right to reply to national vilification campaigns “harassment”. Article 10 of the ECHR (Freedom of Expression) allows me a right of reply. The Norwegians are in breach of Article 10. Only their press (and Heidi), it seems, are allowed a right of reply, and the right to explicitly religiously harass with impunity. The “Muslim man” is not allowed a right of reply. This is bigotry writ large and in obvious breach of Article 14 of the ECHR (Prohibition of Discrimination) and recognition of the Norwegian court verdicts on me would, I submit, be repugnant to UK Public Policy.

Torill Sorte was thus, in relation to my claim, engaged in a private, personal act (in speaking to Roy Hansen the journalist at Eiker Bladet) “otherwise than in the exercise of sovereign authority” and so The Ministry of Justice is not immune from libel proceedings under the 1978 Act. Torill Sorte represented herself as a police officer to the press. Her official behaviour was not legally sanctioned (see Controller & Auditor-General v. Sir Ronald Dawson [1996] 2 NZLR 278 CA). When one looks at the substance of the information supplied by Torill Sorte and the factual background that gave rise to her interviews with three media outlets in 2006 the activity did not have the official sanction of the Norwegian state and was not a permissible state action. It was unrelated to good policing by the state.

Torill Sorte, as a state employee, regularly enters into transactions or activities with separate commercial organisations supplying ostensibly official information. My claim against the Ministry of Justice is for liability under the doctrine of vicarious liability regarding separate proceedings for the tort of libel relating directly to Torill Sorte’s transaction or activity with one of these commercial entities, the newspaper Eiker Bladet. In telling Eiker Bladet that I was “clearly mentally unstable” and had harassed her personally Torill Sorte, although speaking as a police officer, was not acting under any duty to further police work or police aims. She was not speaking to the press on any matter relating to a police investigation on me as her comments related purely to my very public accusations that she was “a liar, dishonest and corrupt” for falsely saying that I had spent two years in a mental hospital in the UK and for similar mental hospital comments in her 1997 witness statement.

10. Heidi Schøne – registered mental patient in Norway

Heidi Schøne has herself been a patient in the BSS Psychiatric Clinic in Lier, Norway in 1988/9 immediately following serious abuse from the father of her child followed by attempted suicide.

Her severe psychiatric history, suffering from “an enduring personality disorder” (see second line page 6, penultimate paragraph of my record of proceedings of October 2003 Court of Appeal case in exhibit FELD 20) and “a tendency to sexualise her behaviour” as disclosed in court in Norway by her psychiatrist (see for example paragraph 15 on page 8 of the Supplemental Appeal translation in exhibit FED 16) makes her 1995-2006 newspaper allegations and court allegations in 2001, 2002 and 2003 on me (totally uncorroborated for the period 1982-1995) highly unreliable. At the October 2003 Court of Appeal trial she was on a 100% disability pension for mental illness.

All Norwegian court decisions totally ignored this crucial evidential aspect. Her psychiatrist, Dr Petter Broch, gave evidence to the Norwegian courts that her “enduring personality disorder” was initiated in her adolescence. Whilst no meaningful cross-examination could take place of Heidi Schøne by me she was allowed by the judge to give full and new evidence in court detailing my alleged crimes against her. The whole point of the October 2003 Court of Appeal trial in Norway was nullified by the judge’s refusal to allow the four hours for cross-examination (agreed by Heidi Schøne’s lawyer), when formulating directions for the trial.

The three 1995 newspaper articles (see exhibit FELD 5) referred to me for example as: “An insane man…” and “the Muslim man” suffering from “erotic paranoia”. They could not believe that my description of Heidi Schøne’s life history was true or that she liked me. I was later vindicated on both counts, but my evidence sent to the newspapers in summer 1995 was ignored, so the saga continued for another decade.

For further crucial detail on Heidi Schøne’s pattern of deceit see my Witness Statement dated 7 March 2011 on pages 9-12:

[None of the allegations reported by Heidi Schøne to Torill Sorte at the police station in 1996 were previously ever reported by Heidi Schøne to the police and these allegations (along with those in the Norwegian press), which were added to and embellished over the years by Heidi, were of such a serious nature that I was forced to continue publishing my side of the story denying that I was, as “a Muslim” (as the press frequently called me), a potential child killer, rapist, mental hospital patient, sexual deviant suffering from erotic paranoia, writer of over 400 obscene letters to Heidi (none were ever produced at any time to anyone), sexual blackmailer, stalker and mortal danger to the public (noting that all of Heidi’s own 1982-1995 allegations were solely on Heidi’s uncorroborated word). Heidi also said in court that I was a user of morphine obtained from my father, a G. P. Still, it seems from Norwegian civil and criminal court decisions that all of the allegations from Heidi are judged to be true leaving me to have to live with the ruling that, of the above, I am regarded judicially as a potential child killer, a rapist, writer of over 400 obscene letters, sexual blackmailer, stalker, liar and a complete Muslim hypocrite for the period 1982-2003. Whatever Heidi said in court was judged to be true. My criminal convictions in Norway for harassment were for my campaigns denying that I was all of the above, for telling Heidi what I thought of her lies to the press and other duplicitous behaviour, and for telling the public Heidi’s sexual past which was seen as too intrusive. My 1995 and subsequent campaigns of ‘harassment’ against Heidi was taken as absolute proof that the campaign must have also been afoot for the years 1982-1995. Heidi repeatedly said in the press that my ‘sexual harassment campaign’ was in full flow from the very moment she returned to Norway in 1982. She ignored the fact that she had been writing nice letters to me for years after 1982. She was a wretched liar.

Heidi had from 1995 until 2006 allowed herself to be named in the press and always had her photo in the papers thus waiving her anonymity, but it cut no ice with the criminal courts or civil courts as justifiable or a defence when I named Heidi in my material denying hers and the media’s allegations. It was absolutely my right to tell the public of Heidi’s life history and sexual past in response to her lurid and sensationalised sexualised newspaper comments on me and indeed my commentary was acknowledged by her psychiatrist as “containing a core of truth” and by Judge Anders Stilloff as “more or less correct.” Just how relating to the public Heidi’s sexual history makes me ‘a sex maniac’, ‘sex-focused’ and ‘a sex-terrorist’ with a ‘pathological interest in Heidi Schøne’ is incomprehensible. I was only responding to the newspapers own sex focused stories. Heidi was the one who was extremely promiscuous and who constantly talked about sex and whose problems were largely related to her sexual adventures. She had had two abortions by the time she was 18.
Very loving correspondence between Heidi and me was exchanged between 1982 and 1991 in fact, but it was sporadic and intermittent. I did not keep all her letters. I kept some. I kept the Christian book written by a Pakistani woman abused by her husband that Heidi sent me in October 1990. But all throughout this period there were serious issues concerning Heidi’s disastrous sexual conduct and personal behaviour. She often asked for advice and yet in major ways ignored it. The only reason she was in England as an au-pair was in order to recover from a second abortion to the same Norwegian man. We frequently met in St Albans and went twice to see Tottenham Hotspur at White Hart Lane. Even in England she was very unpredictable in nature.

She returned to Norway in June 1982 and we corresponded. There was no corresponding in 1983 but it resumed in early spring 1984 when I called her father to enquire after her and he gave me her number as she was staying alone in a basement flat elsewhere. Heidi told me she was recovering from a suicide attempt after a miscarriage of twins caused by the shock of finding out that her new boyfriend, one Gudmund Johannessen, had slept with her best friend. Her sister had found her in time to take her to the hospital to have her stomach pumped after an intake of pills. We called regularly and wrote often. I went to visit Heidi at Christmas 1984/5 when I discovered that her flatmate was an 18 year old prostitute. Heidi’s behaviour had changed markedly from her time in England and she had become very volatile, which I put down to her suicide attempt earlier in the year. I visited her again in Easter 1985 when Heidi told me she had beaten up her flatmate on discovering that she had slept with the Bergen shopkeeper who Heidi had reported to the police for rape. Her on-off boyfriend Gudmund Johannessen (an ex-prison convict) turned up to smoke pot and I told Heidi off for letting him to do this. She took exception to my reprimand. In June 1985 Heidi told me she was pregnant again to this pot smoking boyfriend – the one who had caused her to make an attempt on her life. I wrote to tell her she was crazy to have let this happen and that it would spell disaster for her. When she came to England that summer she refused to see me. She called me immediately on her return to Norway.

When her child was born in April 1986 she told me that both she and the father had then had two AIDS tests each as she was seriously worried that she might be HIV positive as her boyfriend had been injecting heroin after buying the drug on a two week holiday to China and had been sleeping with other girls as well. The test results were negative. I later wrote (1986) to Heidi’s father voicing my disgust at the way his daughter was carrying on and he gave her the letter. Within two weeks she had reported me (falsely) for attempted rape to the Bergen police but I did not learn of this allegation until 1995.

In the early summer of 1988 Heidi called me at my law office in Portland Place in the West End crying and begging for immediate help to restrain her abusive boyfriend who had told her and their son to “Fuck off.” (All admitted by her in court in Norway). She wanted physical revenge on him and told me how right I had been all along in my judgment on her sorry situation. My prediction had come true and another suicide attempt soon followed from Heidi with ensuing treatment in a mental hospital in Lier in 1988/89. I wrote many consoling cards and letters to her and sent her a Brian Wilson music cassette called ‘Love and Mercy.’ (She admitted in court in 2003 to receiving the cassette). She came out of hospital and eventually decided to call me for an hour from her hotel, the Muller Hotel in Drammen, where she was a night receptionist. But by then I had written a letter scolding for not having the courtesy to get in touch for months after my concern for her. She received the letter afterwards and decided not to keep in touch. I went in February 1990 to see her in person and was arrested with a friend whilst in her sister’s flat. I put it down to her usual personality problems and dislike for constructive criticism.

It was a mark of her condition to tell me later in August when I spent the day with her and her son that she thought I wanted to kidnap her son on my February trip. She related in some detail that she had become a Christian, was exorcised from demons and spoke in tongues.

When I discovered in early 1995 about the attempted rape allegation (see first page of an extract of a letter from my lawyer Helge Wesenberg dated 28 February 1995 as per exhibit FELD 4) I was so outraged at this lie that I wrote in May, in revenge, to Heidi’s neighbours telling them her past. Within a week in late May 1995 I had made big stories in three Norwegian newspapers for ‘13 years of sex-terror.’ (See exhibit FELD 5 for the stories and the professional translations). They cited my ‘crimes’ of day in, day out abuse and obscenity with threats to kill many people and that from 1982 to1995 I had been a serial abuser of her person (and Heidi said in court I had a violent temper), coercing her to convert to Islam, blackmailing her for sex. The evidence for all this was solely on Heidi’s uncorroborated word. I have never hit her and she has never alleged this either. Gudmund Johannessen beat her up at her home in 1990 and she reported him to the police. She did not expect me to see the newspapers at all and read her obvious lies - so easily contradicted by the circumstantial evidence and the production of her letters to me. My first Norwegian lawyer, Karsten Gjone, missed the time limits to sue these three newspapers and was found guilty of professional misconduct by the Norwegian Bar Association (see exhibit FELD 6). My thorough but unorthodox attempts to combat this systematic abuse of me was so successful that the revengeful press, without telling me, did further ‘sex-terror’ articles on me over the next 12 years (see for example exhibit FELD 7 for two July 1998 stories on the ‘sex-crazed Englishman’). It was one man against a whole country. The more I protested the worse the abuse that came my way, ending with a police officer, Torill Sorte, telling a national newspaper in 2005 that I had spent two years in a mental hospital in the UK. How desperate was that total fabrication?

It was Heidi’s own stepmother Ellen who first called Heidi “a whore” when she had her second abortion way back in 1981. I called Heidi “a whore” in 1995 in writing when, backed into a corner on the phone while questioning her on her attempted rape allegation she reverted to type and started talking in her sexualised way saying for example, “Do you want to have sex with me?” and “You only want me to come to England to warm your bed.” Extracts from my letters to Heidi in early 1995 are provided by Judge Stilloff in his judgment of 2002, but not the letters in full. What is not mentioned is the abuse I was getting from Heidi on the phone that caused me to write these letters. I had had some strong reservations as to the circumstances of my February 1990 arrest in Norway and exactly what she had told the police and in December 1994 and January 1995 wrote to Heidi asking some questions. The letters went unanswered. No wonder, as when my investigating Norwegian solicitor wrote to me in late February 1995 he told me that Heidi had made an allegation of attempted rape against me to the Bergen police in 1986. When I tried to question Heidi about this she spoke obscenely and refused to tell me why she made an allegation of attempted rape or more particularly what my ‘attempt’ involved. For ten years after 1995 the Norwegian police refused to tell me what the ‘attempt’ involved. I had to give up asking in the end. Heidi had in any case upgraded this accusation to rape in 1998, so Torill Sorte told me. It took Heidi twelve years to change her story. Drammen Tidende newspaper then mentioned rape in 2001.

My 1995 letters to Heidi were not gratuitous abuse from me, but reminded her of her past misdemeanours and freewheeling behaviour in return for her claims of what a sexy attractive girl she thought she still was and how much she said I would love to have sex with her. I cannot stand these sort of sexual taunts and moreover it was this narcissistic behaviour that caused her to have her mental problems and abortions and Aids tests in the first place. Her husband spoke very little English and said moronic things in his stunted English. It did not follow, as the Norwegian courts decided, that I had been writing to Heidi for the previous 13 years calling her “a whore” and “a bitch”, and making obscene phone calls. There was no evidence for this provided at all. It was a false conclusion from the court. Heidi did not have a phone from 1988 to 1993. I wrote to Heidi in 1997 in very condemnatory terms when I was told by Torill Sorte that Heidi was alleging I had threatened to kill her son in a letter. The letter was never found. It was not written in the first place. Dagbladet in 2005 wrote of my alleged desire to see her son dead.

As for Runar Schøne, Heidi’s former husband, his behaviour became quite unwholesome. He answered the phone in June 1995 when I called Heidi to remonstrate on her newspaper comments. He immediately said: “Allah does not exist. Come to Jesus. Only he can save you.” Then he proceeded to speak to me ‘in tongues’ until I put the phone down several minutes later. He admitted in Court in Norway to “babbling” when I put this incident to him. When I reprimanded Heidi Schøne in court after the close of proceedings in Norway in 2000 for falsely alleging that I had threatened to kill her son in a letter, Runar Shone shouted: “We have proof” which Stig Lunde my lawyer heard. No proof was ever provided. It never existed in the first place and was just a despicable lie. Before Judge Anders Stilloff in court in 2002 Runar Schøne compared me with Osama Bin Laden which raised the judge’s eyebrow. In court in 2003 Runar Schøne, before Judge Agnar Nilsen Jr., spoke of how he wanted to go to London to literally “kill” me. Heidi specifically married Runar Schøne, a taxi driver, because he was a Christian.]

11. Abuse of Norwegian Court process

I refer to paragraph 6 of my previous Witness Statement and have corrected one comment by my letter dated 18 January 2011 to Charles Russell Solicitors as per exhibit FELD 8.

I did not think it was an abuse of the court system in Norway to issue a writ to deny ‘sex-terror’ since 1982 or that I was suffering from erotic paranoia or go to the Court of Appeal regarding these allegations and nor did my lawyer, Stig Lunde.

The original writ dated 13 January 2000 included as a defendant the newspaper Drammens Tidende as well as Heidi Schøne (see exhibit FELD 9).

The first hearing in Drammen Court in Norway on 24 August 2000 (see exhibit FELD 10 for my record of the proceedings) in fact went very well and I was allowed to proceed to sue the newspaper Drammens Tidende and Heidi Schøne (see exhibit FELD 11 for the Court decision dated 31 August 2000).

The newspaper Drammens Tidende appealed to the Court of Appeal which hearing I did not attend and their appeal was allowed declaring that they did not have to face trial (see exhibit FELD 12 for Court of Appeal decision dated 24 November 2000).

I went to the Supreme Court (see exhibit FELD 13 for appeal papers dated 29 December 2000 for which I was to make new case law in Norway regarding the Norwegian Press Complaints Commission’s very uncertain rules).

My appeal was dismissed as my lawyer had missed the time limits to appeal (see exhibit FELD 14 for Supreme Court decision dated 16 February 2001).

This just left Heidi Schøne as defendant and the trial began on 15 January 2002 (my account of which is given in exhibit FELD 15). I lost.

So I appealed. I am certainly not, for example, a potential child killer and it is my right to appeal to the Civil Court of Appeal (see exhibit FELD 16 for appeal papers dated 13 March 2002 and 12 June 2002) and Supreme Court (see Exhibit FELD 17 for Appeal papers dated 11 February 2004) in Norway against the inference that I am a potential child killer - an allegation made solely on the uncorroborated word of a Norwegian psychiatric patient.

12. Retractions by Drammens Tidende newspaper in Court in October 2003

A whole host of new information came to light at the Court of Appeal but was most surprisingly omitted from the judge’s judgment. I wrote it up in my contemporaneous record as per exhibit FELD 20. The judge’s omissions and other basic mistakes formed the basis of my appeal to the Supreme Court.

In going to the Court of Appeal it was accepted by the Drammens Tidende newspaper editor, in evidence, that untruths were told in his newspaper about me and they could have “researched the matter much better.” (See fifth paragraph on page 5 of exhibit FELD 20). For instance it was accepted that I did not write “300 letters to Heidi Schøne from 1997 to 1998” or that I had threatened with death her neighbours if they did not give me her new address. (See last paragraph on page 2 of exhibit FELD 20). Their journalist Ingunn Røren admitted that when she wrote that I was suffering from an extreme case of erotic paranoia she did not know what it meant, but had just lifted it from another newspaper. (See fourth paragraph on page 6 of exhibit FELD 20).

So I was vindicated in some respects. I also wanted to set the record straight with Torill Sorte’s perjury: I had never been “put” into a mental hospital by my mother. What mental abuse of my mother by Torill Sorte! Her evidence tainted the trial. So the judge is perverse in saying that bringing my appeal was an abuse of the legal process. He still allowed my appeal to the Supreme Court and had to assist my lawyer, Stig Lunde, with the appeal application. My appeal to the Supreme Court was dismissed on 17 March 2004 with no reasons given (see exhibit FELD 18 for Supreme Court decision).

(It can be seen in fact that very little of my original case was actually litigated and none of my opponent’s evidence could be tested).

The Norwegian judge, Agnar Nilsen Jr., erred procedurally in not allowing me to properly cross-examine Heidi Schøne. The more so as Heidi Schøne was on a 100% disability pension for mental illness and was herself allowed to give so freely her ever changing, highly sexualised, evidence. The judge told the Court that he would have to cut short the trial ending it at 1pm on a Thursday instead of the scheduled 4pm on the Friday, which meant my cross-examination of Heidi could not take place, save for a paltry 20 minutes worth, when the judge himself insisted on asking Heidi the questions. The reason for this truncation of the trial became apparent the minute the trial finished, when I was arrested at the door of the court for having a website detailing my tribulations in Norway. (See exhibit FELD 19 for Drammens Tidende article dated 26 October 2003 entitled ‘Plaintiff arrested in Court’ following ‘more than 20 years of persecution’). This left the whole of the next day, a Friday, to take me before the Magistrate’s Court: charged again with harassment of Heidi Schøne. There has to be a suspicion that my civil appeal trial was a sham and that the judge knew I was going to be arrested.

I was not warned of the arrest by the Norwegian police of course. I pleaded guilty, not freely, but under duress as the police prosecutor, Ingunn Hodne, told me that either (1) I plead guilty to harassment and agree to take my website down within seven days of my return to England subject to the Magistrate’s discretion not to give me an immediate custodial sentence of eight months imprisonment, or (2) go straight to prison for my website harassment.

The shock of this violation of my basic human rights was such that all I wanted to do, after a sleepless night in the cells, was to go back to England.

Even the two British Embassy officials who visited me in the cells in Drammen police station told me that there was no way I should be going to prison as I had a right to reply to the Norwegian newspapers. But I was told that the police were quite intent on giving me a prison sentence and that I had to take legal advice (see exhibit FELD 20 for my account of the arrest and conviction and the preceding Court of Appeal trial). It will be seen that what actually happened at the trial was wholly at variance with Judge Agnar Nilsen’s record of the proceedings as per his decision of 14 November 2003.

13. 2001 Conviction

My first conviction (and a fine) for harassment of Heidi Schøne in 2001 for telling the public about Heidi Schøne’s life history (see exhibit FELD 3) by way of reply to the national newspaper vilification campaign was obtained against me in absentia. The procedural errors were as stated in my Witness Statement dated 7 March 2011 on page 14 under the same heading: 2001 Conviction.

14. Duress, UK Public Policy and Human Rights Act 1998

Recognition of foreign convictions obtained under duress is against UK public policy as per Rule 44 of the Renvoi principles which is certainly applicable to my 2003 conviction for having a website.

Recognition of foreign judgments is impeachable on the grounds that they are obtained in contravention of natural justice and where there have been procedural irregularities under Rule 45 of the Renvoi principles. I could never test the 1982-1995 uncorroborated evidence of Heidi Schøne at any stage. None of the arguments put at my civil trials were referred to in Norwegian judgments suggesting that my evidence was not considered at all. This was a fundamental breach of article 6 of the ECHR: the right to a fair trial.

The convictions were also given in direct contravention of Article 10 of the ECHR which is incorporated into the Human Rights Act 1998. I clearly have the right to express my opinion and reply directly to newspaper vilification campaigns based in no small part on religious abuse. That my opinion is expressed in a manner that some sections of the Norwegian public may find distasteful is acceptable and fair under the ECHR.

The civil libel judgment and the criminal convictions in Norway should not be recognised in the UK. The situations giving rise to them would never arise in England. They are contrary to English concepts of morality, decency, human liberty and justice and repugnant to these fundamental principles.

15. Torill Sorte

Torill Sorte is an obvious liar and has mentally abused me and my mother in a most dreadful way and the evidence is all there in black and white. I have not made pestering nuisance phone calls to her. A detailed explanation of my dealings with her is given on pages 15-17 of my Witness Statement dated 7 March 2011 under the same heading. (See also my recorded conversations with her in 1996-1998 as per exhibit FED 5. Before she knew these were recorded she said publically that even these calls were in the nature of harassment).

[12. It must, I submit, be obvious that Torill Sorte has lied to Dagbladet in a way that was clearly intended to destroy my credibility. Torill Sorte has continued to lie by telling Eiker Bladet that I am “clearly mentally unstable” and mislead the Court with the help of Charles Russell who advised her and drafted her Witness Statements. They and Torill Sorte and Christian Reusch are obliged under the CPR to correct errors and misleading statements. I cannot challenge Torill Sorte directly on her Witness Statements as she will not be present in Court on the hearing to set aside and dismiss my claims.
13. I have not, as Torill Sorte claims, made any pestering, nuisance phone calls to her. She was free to record my calls with her and will have to prove her claim. I have called her at home to decently challenge her outrageous lies. I called her in the evenings and late evening on a few occasions but only because there was more likelihood that she would be in. My calls to her were few in number as she refused to admit or explain anything. There was never any high volume number of phone calls. In any case I gave up calling her about four years ago. I was so incredulous that a police officer could tell such an appalling lie to a national newspaper that I had been in a mental hospital for two years followed by another mentally ill comment to Eiker Bladet - and get away with it. My family doctor’s letter (exhibit FED 2) is with the High Court stating categorically that I have never been a patient in a mental hospital. It was also with the Norwegian courts in 2003. It defied human nature not to call Torill Sorte in protest. But she does think she is above the law as she is a police officer. She knows all the in-house tricks to get herself out of a very tight spot. And there is a nationalistic, bigoted element to her protection by others. What other national press and local press in western Europe calls a victim continuously - not by his name but by his religion? And whose officialdom and court system never criticises this in any official reply to my complaints and legal actions? Norway’s.
14. Torill Sorte’s defence in paragraph 20 of her Witness Statement on behalf of the Ministry is disingenuous. Why not just say what she disassociates herself from in the Eiker Bladet article? Why no mention that the reason I was calling her a liar had nothing to so with any case investigation? My reaction was due to her lies that I had been incarcerated in a mental hospital. She wants to make it seem as if her comments were part of a criminal “case” but this is just a ruse. Her silence over the years implies consent and approval to the article the subject of my claims. Besides, journalists usually read an article over to its chief interviewee before publishing it.
15. I did not appreciate Torill Sorte putting in a 1997 witness statement (exhibit FED 3) to the Norwegian Courts in 2002 in Norwegian, which was read out to me for the first time ever in open court in January 2002 saying that I had been treated in a mental hospital. She repeated this on oath. She had committed perjury as I have, as a matter of fact, never been treated as a patient in any mental hospital. This was the main evidence that Torill Sorte gave in court in my claim against Heidi Schøne. So I related my side of the story on my website. Torill Sorte called it harassment.
16. My claim against Torill Sorte is not an abuse of process or a symptom of continuing harassment of her. She is an abject liar and I have clearly been libelled in the UK and the longer the article in question is allowed to stand the greater the likelihood of damage I stand to come by. I am not re-litigating decided issues. I have not sued Torill Sorte before and it has not been declared in any court of law in Norway that I am mentally disturbed. As stated above, readers in the UK will get the distinct impression that I am a mad man who harasses women and readers will not understand the truth that the harassment I am accused of in the article was in fact my campaign to defend the years of abuse suffered at the hands of the Norwegian press and Heidi Schøne and Torill Sorte. Torill Sorte has inflicted on me mental abuse out of pure malice. I could not sue in Norway for the 2006 article as appearing in person would have led to instant arrest and imprisonment as I had not removed my website. The Eiker Bladet article is still online and published world wide in most of the world’s languages. It is accessible via a hyperlink in English when a google search is done on my name and this hyperlink which is at the top of the list immediately below a link for a property investment company making mention that Farid El Diwany is a senior solicitor based in the City of London (see exhibit FELD 22). Readers click on the Norwegian article ‘Translate this page’ link and read that I am mentally disturbed and an abuser of women. A “Muslim” abuser of women. The link existed previously (as per exhibit FELD 23) for 26 October 2009 and accompanying articles of the same date and see also article for 11 June 2010 (exhibit FELD 24) and the google search for 20 August 2010 (exhibit FELD 25).]

16. Torill Sorte’s defence as per Norwegian lawyer’s letter of 18 October 2010

Torill Sorte’s defence to my claim, as per exhibit TS2, through her Norwegian lawyer Espen Johansen’s letter dated 18 October 2010 firstly contests the Court’s jurisdiction saying it should come under the Norwegian jurisdiction only, and in the alternative claims justified comment.

Contrary to what the Torill Sorte’s Norwegian lawyer states I have never lived in Norway. I have been an infrequent visitor on very short trips. The Norwegian Press Complaints Bureau (the PFU) does not look into truth or falsehood of the comments made in a newspaper article. They only rule in very general terms as to whether the newspaper has a prima facie right to publish a story on public interest grounds. So it is a complete red herring for Sorte’s Norwegian lawyers to say I had an effective remedy with the PFU. I should know after being given the run around for years by the PFU and extensive litigation to Supreme Court level in Norway regarding their role in the investigation of my previous complaints.

On page 2 of the letter to the Senior Master Sorte’s Norwegian lawyer states that the article “was written according to regular Norwegian journalistic ethics and it was not considered necessary to obtain Mr El Dewany’s (sic) opinion.” So in calling me “clearly mentally unstable” it was still not necessary to contact me to get my views?

Hardly in accordance with any sound ethical press regulations! Yet out of the 19 articles done on me, (being the ones that I knew about), in often front page national and provincial newspapers in Norway over a period of 12 years (1995-2006) I was never, save on one occasion, asked my opinion as to the contents of the articles to be printed, including unforgivably in 2005 an article in Dagbladet saying I had wanted a young child to die (Heidi previously said she thought I actually wanted to kill her son Daniel which I had written in a letter), had been in a mental hospital in the UK for two years and was a “Muslim”.
I have never been in any mental hospital anywhere and have certainly never wanted her young child to die or threatened to kill him. The Norwegian press failure to get my opinion on such serious allegations would never be seen as acceptable by a UK court on grounds of public policy.

No apologies were ever issued on my contacting the newspapers to protest directly about an article that had been printed. When I protested on my own initiative by the usual method of my own website (started in 2000 being a whole five years after the first newspaper articles on me) and advertising my website I am given an 8 month suspended prison sentence for ‘harassment’ and ordered to take my website down.

When I used the Norwegian newspaper website fora to protest in 2005 I am abused in the crudest of terms by Torill Sorte and Heidi Schøne and Dagbladet. They do to me what they falsely accuse me of doing to them. Even the Hate Crimes Unit of the Essex police sent a complaint to Interpol in Norway on my behalf after the vilest Norwegian religious and sexual harassment campaign imaginable. Interpol Norway left it to the internal Norwegian authorities to deal with my complaint who ruled that the hate campaign and its initiation by Torill Sorte and the national newspaper Dagbladet was all quite understandable and acceptable and rejected my complaint. Interpol Norway passed the buck.

The English version of the offending Eiker Bladet article is published each day on the internet in the UK and is seen in the UK, where I live and work as a solicitor and have a reputation to defend, and is where I discovered the article after a google search on my name, making the proper jurisdiction for hearing my claim the UK.

Regarding Hansen’s and Sorte’s purported defence of justified comment and qualified privilege in their letter of 21 September 2010 no substantive evidence was supplied by their Norwegian lawyer to support this defence within the CPR time limits up to the time I obtained judgment in default on 18 November 2010. That Torill Sorte’s new lawyers, Charles Russell in London, have now put in some substantive documentary evidence is all very well but they have still not put in any evidence to justify why I am “clearly mentally unstable” and will not be allowed to at this stage, not that they will ever come up with anything anyway.

Torill Sorte is saying via her Norwegian lawyer’s letter of 21 September 2010 in the penultimate paragraph, in effect, that in not being able to accept that her allegation that I am “clearly mentally unstable” was true (which is linked with her ‘fact’ that I have been in a mental hospital for two years when I have not) and continuing to protest about this allegation as well as others (together with Roy Hansen’s allegations) by way of a High Court claim I am guilty of “on-going harassment of Ms Sorte”.

17. Breach of confidentiality charade

One total untruth by Torill Sorte’s Norwegian lawyers is to say that I have reported her for “breach of confidentiality.” For a full explanation of Norwegian sleight of hand see under the same heading as above in my Witness Statement dated 7 March 2011 on page 18.

[18. One total untruth by Torill Sorte’s Norwegian lawyers is to say that I have reported her for “breach of confidentiality.” The Norwegian authorities, by sleight of hand, took it upon themselves to look into whether Torill Sorte’s own false allegation in a 1997 witness statement and repeated on oath in Court - that my mother told her that I had been “put” in a mental hospital - was a breach of confidentiality by making public my mother’s alleged statement to Torill Sorte. The defect in this procedure is that I have definitely never been in a mental hospital anywhere ever and Torill Sorte’s evidence that my mother told her I had been “put” in a mental hospital is a pure concoction. And perjury by Torill Sorte. The fact that there is a cover up over this in Norway is not my fault. The Norwegian authorities ruled that Torill Sorte was not in breach of confidentiality - ignoring my actual complaint that as I have never in fact been in a mental hospital then what else but a liar could Torill Sorte be? My own family doctor has stated categorically that I have never been a patient in a mental hospital and the Court has his letter to this effect.]

18. Norwegian lawyers ignore the CPR and the Senior Master

Moreover Torill Sorte has not supplied any evidence that the Acknowledgement of Service, which she says had been posted to the Court by recorded delivery, had actually been filed with the Court. Where is Torill Sorte’s post office recorded delivery slip and certificate of posting?

The Defendants have also not supplied the letter of 18 October 2010 from the Senior Master to their Norwegian lawyer who, it is apparent, was asked by the Senior Master in that letter to supply an address for service in the UK for the Defendants or of the address of an English qualified solicitor in Norway (or one in the EEA). The Defendants had full court explanatory notes for defendants translated into Norwegian sent to them with the Claim plus a letter from the Senior Master dated 18 October 2010 but still chose not to comply with the CPR requirements or take any advice from a UK qualified solicitor. When I sued unrelated parties for libel in Norway in 2000 I took Norwegian legal advice and was told I had to supply an address for service in Norway, which I did by providing the address for a Norwegian lawyer in the town of Moss.

The Defendant’s Norwegian lawyers were, it seems, negligent in not advising their clients as to a fundamental aspect of UK law regarding the provision of an address for service. Ignorance of the law is no defence and wilful refusal to abide by the CPR/take the advice of the Senior Master after his letter of 18 October 2010 is no defence either. The Norwegian lawyers wanted to proceed on their own terms and in effect rebuked the Senior Master.

The CPR require that a defendant must provide a comprehensive response to the particulars of claim: what is admitted and what is denied together with a statement of truth. No comprehensive response was ever provided in time by Torill Sorte or Roy Hansen nor was statement of truth provided either via their Norwegian lawyers.

19. Payment into Court

But if the Court is minded to set aside my judgment against Torill Sorte and grant a trial then:
(a) I ask that my costs thrown away up to and including the hearing be awarded to me and also that Torill Sorte’s costs similarly not be awarded against me and
(b) that Torill Sorte be made to pay a sum into Court on account of my costs and damages with the amount depending on whether the Ministry is paying for her as it seems they are paying for her costs in using Charles Russell.

20. Witness Statement of James Quartermaine regarding Roy Hansen & Torill Sorte

Torill Sorte does not have a real prospect of successfully defending her claim for the reasons set out above.

The convictions against me should not be recognised by the Court on public policy grounds for the reasons stated above.

The Human Rights Act 1998 will prevent recognition of all Norwegian civil and criminal judgments against me (as detailed in exhibit FELD 26).

21. Steps taken by the Second Defendant in response to Particulars of Claim

Regarding paragraph 4 of James Quartermaine’s Witness Statement, given the extreme vilification and mental abuse by Torill Sorte of me, I saw no point in writing a letter before action to her as it would have achieved nothing. The idea behind a letter of claim is that by giving Torill Sorte proper information about the case in advance of proceedings there is greater prospect of the dispute being resolved. There was no chance whatsoever of this dispute being resolved as my efforts to resolve matters with the Norwegians over the previous decade have clearly been fruitless and hopeless.

Torill Sorte would not talk to me when I called her to complain. She had done so much damage in 2005 with her outrageous lie to Dagbladet that there was not the slightest prospect of a settlement to avoid litigation by writing a letter before action to her. Indeed, her comments are still online. She has not indicated that she has asked Roy Hansen to take the article off the internet. She wants to defend my claim. Besides, I sent a letter before action to her co-defendant Roy Hansen (see exhibit FELD 27). Torill Sorte and Roy Hansen have used the same Norwegian lawyer and Torill Sorte herself, via her Norwegian lawyer, raised no objection to not having received a letter before action. It is all water under the bridge.

In paragraph 5 of his Witness Statement, James Quartermaine speaks of Torill Sorte’s attempts to follow Norwegian legal procedure in responding to my claim in the High Court through her Norwegian legal advisers. Every lawyer should know that when dealing with a foreign jurisdiction the laws of procedure are not the same as at home and that it is essential to get the advice of the appropriate expert lawyer qualified in the jurisdiction of the issuing court. The Defendants’ lawyers have been negligent. Torill Sorte and Roy Hansen were not litigants in person, when procedural errors made are more understandable. I only saw the Defendants’ so-called defences – two separate alterative, but unsubstantiated, defences in two letters made through their Norwegian lawyers with no statement of truth – when the Application to set aside was made by Charles Russell, so I cannot be blamed for entering default judgment. So I should not be liable for any of Torill Sorte’s legal costs to date should my judgment against her be set aside.

22. Abuse of Process

Re-litigating decided issues

In response to paragraphs 7 and 8 of James Quartermaine’s Witness Statement I am not re-litigating decided issues. I am litigating undecided issues.

My litigation in Norway related to one 1998 article in Drammens Tidende and even that was not litigated in any meaningful way as the defendant newspaper went to the Court of Appeal and succeeded in having my claim against them declared null and void on the grounds that I had, two years earlier, promised not to sue if the Norwegian Press Complaints Bureau (the PFU) looked into my case.

I was tricked by the PFU as I did not know at the time that they did not look into the truth or falsehood of newspaper allegations nor did I know that I could still sue in Court after using the PFU. My appeal to the Supreme Court in Norway on these points was dismissed as my lawyer, Stig Lunde, had missed the time limits and no discretion to hear our appeal was exercised by the court in our favour. A pity, as it was going to create new case law in Norway. This was despicable sleight of hand by the PFU who earlier, in 1995, on seeing me referred to solely as the “Muslim man” so many times in the press did not exercise their independent right to look at the religious hatred aspect and in 1996 dismissed my complaint against three 1995 newspapers stories for being out of time.

This action then left just Heidi Schøne as defendant and that went to the Supreme Court, who dismissed my appeal without reasons. Without reasons! As I was prevented from cross-examining Heidi Schøne at the Court of Appeal the whole trial was unfair and a total waste of time. But as a certified mental patient on a 100% disability pension Heidi’s evidence was allowed in full and allowed to go totally unchallenged.

The British courts must be allowed a proper understanding of the Norwegian legal system and that its model of natural justice bears no comparison to the British model and their treatment of claimants like myself would be seen as a breach of the Human Rights Act 1998.

I have not sued either Torill Sorte or Roy Hansen in Norway. I am suing on a 2006 article now, republished every day on the internet.

The most serious allegation in the article, that I am “clearly mentally unstable” has not been declared as true by any Court of law in Norway. It is only since I discovered the article was available in English on the internet that I have been able to sue in the UK courts. I live and work here and my reputation is deemed to have been damaged. People searching for my name on google here and clients/prospective clients here and abroad searching for my name and accessing the article will certainly see me in a very bad light even on the google translation as it stands as the gist of it is easily understood. In practice the article will probably remain online for some time to come and the translation is bound to improve and be perfected - as anyone can alter it.

23. Google is a facilitator not a publisher

I played no part whatsoever in creating the google translation facility. Google is not a publisher but a facilitator without which the internet would never function and it is not they who should be on trial for libel. It is the defendants in my two claims.

Roy Hansen would know that but for the existence of his online article in Norwegian it would never have been translated into English. The format of the English version of the article is just an extension of the Norwegian version with exactly the same colours and lay-out and adverts as the Norwegian version (see exhibit FELD 28). The English version is a reasonably foreseeable consequence of Roy Hansen’s placement of the Norwegian article on his website.

24. Not a stale article

The article is not a stale article as it is re-published every day in Norwegian and English and its publication in English is fairly recent – discovered by me in 2009. The fact that the article is in English now makes it in effect a fresh article as I am litigating on it at the first available opportunity in the most appropriate forum.

25. Article on my website with name redacted

The article is on my website but as rightly stated by Charles Russell I have redacted my name – which makes all the difference in the world as no where on my site is my name mentioned. I use the pseudonym of Frederick elsewhere. No one reading my website is told it is Farid El Diwany who is the subject of the articles.

All of the nineteen articles on me by the Norwegian press that came to my attention, many by chance, are on my website to show the pattern of abuse I have suffered but that cannot be seen in any way as an admission that I believe the contents of the articles to be true. For eighteen of these articles the press did not name me and they tried to argue that this omission made it all very passive and excusable. The persistent naming of my religion of Islam in the same breath as calling me a sexual monster was treated as being all quite within the media’s rights of freedom of expression. They all feigned surprise when I got upset and then doubled and redoubled my punishment when I protested.

From having no whiff of any deviant sexual illness or stalking attributes at any time from 1982 to 1995 I had become, overnight, the most extreme sexual Muslim abuser known to Norway. All on Heidi Schøne’s uncorroborated word.

26. Norwegian establishment sex/mental abuse is not new

See paragraph 30 on page 22 of my Witness Statement dated 7 March 2011 for another example of major Norwegian psychological and sexualised abuse.

[30. In fact this mental and sexualised abuse of me had echoes of the Norwegian sexual and mental abuse of the children of Norwegian women and German soldiers from the last war, a case at the ECHR. (See exhibit FELD 29 being a 2003 Independent on Sunday newspaper feature on the Norwegian abuse and establishment cover-up).The Norwegians themselves called these innocent children the German “whore children” in a vitriolic, pernicious campaign that had many parallels with my own ghastly Norwegian experience. My mother is German and the Norwegian press knew this all along. Being a Muslim with an Egyptian father and a natural German mother was a fatal combination for the Norwegian press. I am very much an outsider to the Norwegians and their campaign of religious, sexualised abuse was especially pernicious because the newspapers never named me, making it very difficult to sue.

As for the religious prejudice element in my case see a small sample of other examples provided with exhibit FELD 30 from The Times and Aftenposten’s English web desk.]

27. Newspapers obliged to consult subject before and after publication

If this sex-terror story was up for consideration by a national newspaper in England instead of Norway I would have been contacted by the newspaper for my opinion. And they would never have made my religion centre stage as did Verdens Gang and Bergens Tidende in 1995 and Aftenposten in 2002 (see exhibit FELD 31 for Aftenposten of 15 April 2002 article and prior conversation with journalist for an example of blatant Norwegian duplicity).

My large ‘harassment’ campaign would never have been necessary. It is accepted procedure that a newspaper should and usually does, on a ‘sex’ story of this nature, contact a subject first and obtain his views and check the facts for accuracy before going to print. This was all ignored in Norway. To call a subject by his religion only and in conjunction with highly salacious, sexualised and mentally abusive allegations would never happen in England. To have a registered mental patient such as Heidi Schøne, the main supplier of information to the press with, from summer 1995, a known history of sexual licence and psychiatric hospitalisation and still regard her testimony for over a decade afterwards as reliable would never happen with English newspaper editors. A criminal prosecution for one newspaper printing a response to another newspaper’s ‘sex’ story just does not happen, no matter how personal.

My facts were all true about Heidi Schøne and Torill Sorte and my campaigns were a proportionate response. No newspaper in Norway ever printed my response so I had to generate my own publicity. The question of facing a prosecution and a criminal conviction in England would never have arisen as here religious vilification campaigns are not initiated by the press.

28. Norwegian support for my website

My website has been praised by enlightened Norwegians (as per exhibit FED 10). Their messages make essential reading. My allegations on the website are all true. Where is the lie in labelling Torill Sorte ‘guilty of gross misconduct whilst in public office’ with such fulsome and overwhelming evidence?

The Norwegians went on and on sexualising my behaviour when it was all a charade and their main witness, Heidi Schøne, was herself described by her own psychiatrist as having a “tendency to sexualise her behaviour.” I responded by giving them a taste of their own medicine: a full rundown of Heidi’s sexual and mental history.

Torill Sorte and Heidi Schøne (and all others mentioned on my website) are all free to sue me for libel. And at least, in England, they will not be arrested after the civil libel trial for their own newspaper vilification campaigns nor will they be given a suspended prison sentence under duress, even though their allegations were all bigoted, perverted, sexualised nonsense.

They will not be religiously vilified by the UK press even though they themselves had incited religious hatred in Norway and incurred the interest of Interpol for the hate crime committed against me. They will not be locked up in a police cell for speaking their minds on this case. Here in the UK their human rights will be real and not illusory.

In response to paragraph 10 of James Quartermaine’s witness statement and exhibit JAQ5 I enclose my own correspondence with the Norwegian authorities (as per exhibit FELD 32) to show how the rules of natural justice were not followed by the Bureau of Investigation of Police Affairs in their decision of 19 June 2007. Johan Martin Welhaven gives no substantial reasons to justify his support for Torill Sorte calling me “clearly mentally unstable.”

29. Publication in England and harm presumed

I have clearly stated in my Particulars of Claim that the Eiker Bladet article is published on the internet and as it can be seen in the UK in English it is published to third parties in England and Wales.
If I can access the article via a google search on my name then so can third parties. As long as the article remains online there is every opportunity for third parties to access it via a google search on my name.
Referring to paragraph 13 of James Quartermaine’s Witness Statement it is a fact that Roy Hansen’s article is on the internet on his own website and has been published to the world in Norwegian and English and many other languages.

The posting of an article on a US website that is accessible to English subscribers constitutes publication in England as per paragraph 16 in Jameel v Dow Jones & Co. Inc. [2004] EWHC 1619 and [2005] QB 946 CA (copy enclosed). The same principle applies to Roy Hansen’s Norwegian website and its’ English extension which is accessible to English readers and is therefore published in England. As per paragraph 19 in Richardson v Schwarzenegger [2004] EWHC 2422 QB (copy enclosed) it is “well settled” that “an internet publication takes place in any jurisdiction where the relevant words are read or downloaded.”

I do not have to adduce evidence of any actual harm caused to my reputation within the jurisdiction. In paragraph 2.08 on page 17 of ‘A Practical Guide to Libel and Slander’ by Jeremey Clarke-Williams and Lorna Skinner under the heading ‘Burden of Proof’ it says: ‘The claimant merely has to prove facts from which it can be reasonably inferred that the words complained of were brought to the attention of a third party. He does not have to prove that the allegations were brought to the actual attention of a third party.’

See also paragraph 20 of Richardson v Schwarzenegger which says: ‘…the English law of defamation provides for a presumption of damage to reputation once any defamatory communication has been established.’

30. No abuse of resources of High Court

The principles in the case of Jameel v Dow Jones & Co Inc [2005] QB 946 CA (copy enclosed) cited by James Quartermaine regarding an abuse of resources of the Court are not relevant to my case. The Claimant in Jameel was not working in London or the UK - as I am as a lawyer in private practice with a reputation to protect. In paragraph 17 of the judgment in Jameel the defendant adduced evidence that only five people in the UK jurisdiction had seen the article (available on subscription only) that the claimant was suing on and its libel content was at best tenuous. In my case no such evidence has been provided by Torill Sorte.

The longer the Eiker Bladet link is online the greater the chances of third parties looking at it. My claim was also against Roy Hansen and for an injunction requiring him to remove the article and he is not defending my claim. In Jameel the article was removed from the internet (see paragraph 7 of the judgment). In my case the link and article is still online.
I have to try something to stop this vilification and it cannot therefore in any way be described as vexatious litigation.

31. Particulars of Claim were understood by defendants

My Particulars of Claim (see my claim form as per exhibit FELD 33) are not materially defective and do not require any substantive amendment. I have complied with CPR PD 53 paragraphs. 2.1, 2.2 and 2.3 and have set out the words complained of and the defamatory meanings. Only brief but adequate details are required not an exhaustive explanation.

The defendants understood the claim and its meaning and did not, through their Norwegian lawyers, put in any defence alleging defective particulars of claim within the time limits.

Torill Sorte has suffered no prejudice as my particulars of claim specified in full the article complained of and her Norwegian lawyers made it quite clear that they knew the article I was referring to. Master Leslie saw no defect in my Particulars of Claim when he gave me judgment on 18 November 2010. Master Eastman saw no defect in my almost identical particulars of claim when he gave permission for my claim against the Ministry to be served out of jurisdiction. Christian Reusch, for the Ministry, made it quite clear that he understood what the Claim was about.

Torill Sorte’s new lawyers, Charles Russell, should not be allowed to put forward a new defence at this stage outside the time limits when defences have already been submitted by Torill Sorte’s former Norwegian lawyers. The time has passed for creating entirely new defences.

A defendant who files a defence and defends on the merits will be taken to have acquiesced and therefore it is too late to strike out as an abuse of process if the abuse is founded on the bringing of the claim (Johnson v Gore Woods [2002] AC1).

Torill Sorte and Roy Hansen’s Norwegian lawyers filed a purported defence and did not allege defective Particulars of Claim and so therefore acquiesced. It is too late for another firm to defend from scratch. The defendants Norwegian lawyers should have asked for an extension of time.

32. I refer to my arguments in my witness statement of 4 January 2011 as well.

STATEMENT OF TRUTH
I believe that the facts stated in this submission of skeletal arguments are true.

………………………….
Signed Dated: 14 March 2011
Farid El Diwany
Claimant

IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE Claim No. HQ10D02228
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
BETWEEN:
FARID EL DIWANY
Claimant
and
THE MINISTRY OF JUSTICE AND THE POLICE, NORWAY
Defendant

WITNESS STATEMENT OF FARID EL DIWANY

I, Farid El Diwany, Solicitor, of [................. ................... ............... ...................] WILL SAY AS FOLLOWS:

1. I am the Claimant in this matter and hereby reply to the Witness Statement dated 22 December 2010 of Christian Reusch an attorney at law at the Office of the Attorney General for Civil Affairs, Norway, who is instructed by the Defendant.

2. At the same time as applying to set aside the Order of 16 July 2010 by Master Eastman granting permission for service of my claim outside the jurisdiction, Christian Reusch has, in his Witness Statement:

(a) conceded that the Defendant is vicariously liable for the acts and omissions of all police officers in Norway including in particular a police officer Torill Sorte and accepted that her comments, the subject of my Claim, were authorised by the Defendant;

(b) put in a defence to my claim based on qualified privilege and justified comment.

3. In paragraph 5 of his Witness Statement Christian Reusch has referred to my "public harassment" of Torill Sorte "partly in the form of repeated comments posted on newspaper websites in Norway claiming, for example, that Ms Sorte was dishonest and corrupt." (Comments which I, the Claimant, stand by). Christian Reusch has not mentioned that he and/or the Ministry are well aware of the following facts (by way of several letters in 2005 from myself to the Minister of Justice as hereinafter referred to):

(a) that I am entitled to a right of reply (as per Article 10 of the ECHR) to Torill Sorte's own earlier public statements in, for example, the national newspaper Dagbladet in Norway and in her own witness statements and when giving evidence on oath in Court. Note in particular the following:

(i) Torill Sorte was the confirmed source of information to the journalist Morten Øverbye printed in the Norwegian national newspaper Dagbladet on 20 December 2005 (online) and repeated on the front page of the actual newspaper on 21 December 2005 stating that I the "Muslim man" had been a patient in a psychiatric hospital for two years in England. (See exhibit FED1 showing both articles professionally translated into English at my expense). This allegation was a total fabrication by Torill Sorte who made it up. Torill Sorte knew this to be a fabrication as in October 2003 at the Court of Appeal in Drammen in my civil libel prosecution over a 1998 Drammens Tidende newspaper article, I presented the court and Torill Sorte with my family doctor's letter dated 22 April 2003 (see exhibit FED2) which stated categorically that I had never been a patient in a mental hospital. This letter was specifically requisitioned by me in order to refute Torill Sorte's earlier evidence, sworn on oath before Judge Anders Stillof in the Drammen City Court in January 2002, that my mother had told her that I had been "put" into a mental hospital (another total lie and in any case my mother did not tell her this as no such conversation took place on this unknown occasion). The Defendant is well aware that I was not contacted by Dagbladet either before or after the December 2005 articles were published.

(ii) Torill Sorte had also put in evidence to the Court of Appeal in Norway in October 2003 her signed witness statement from 1997 claiming that my mother had told her that "he [Farid] was sick and needs help... and on one occasion he was admitted for treatment." (See exhibit FED5 with Sorte's Norwegian witness statement and professional translation, paid for at my own expense). As I have clearly never been a patient in a mental hospital then my mother could not possibly have told Torill Sorte that the contrary was the case. I constantly pressed the Norwegian authorities to provide me with Torill Sorte's attendance notes recording the date and time of this alleged mental hospital conversation with my mother and the date and time of the call and by whom the call was made. The Norwegian authorities ignored me and dismissed my complaint (suggesting a cover up by them and conspiracy to pervert the course of justice). Moreover my mother had written to Judge Anders Stilloff in January 2002 (see exhibit FED4) to report Torill Sorte's perjury.

(iii) I had on one occasion only asked my mother to come to the phone to speak to Torill Sorte in April 1996 to tell her that Heidi Schøne's 1995 newspaper comments that my mother had "wanted" to put me into a mental hospital were false. This my mother did. Heidi Schøne has in fact herself been a registered mental patient since 1989 at the BSS Psychiatric Clinic in Lier, Norway. Her psychiatrist, Dr Petter Broch, has testified in court that his patient has an "enduring personality disorder" and "has a tendancy to sexualise her behaviour."

And that Heidi has been mentally abused by her stepmother and two older sisters and sexually abused by her stepmother's father [all only on Heidi's word] and that her problems were initiated by a difficult adolescence.
The April 1996 conversation between Torill Sorte and my mother was recorded by me along with all my other calls to Sorte and selected transcripts were allowed in evidence in court in Norway provided I translated them into Norwegian first, as Judge Stillofs command of English was not fluent. But there was no time to actually use them in court. However the April 1996 conversation with my mother was not put in evidence but when Torill Sorte on oath communicated for the first time ever to me that my mother had allegedly told her that I had been put into a mental hospital, my lawyer Stig Lunde interrupted her to say that is not what a recorded conversation we have on tape says here: that the very opposite was the case. Sorte was caught out as she said she had no idea her conversations with me were being recorded. The day's proceedings were then brought to a close. But in the evening Stig Lunde spoke to Torill Sorte who told him that if she was called back next morning to face cross-examination over her mental hospital comment she would say that, unbeknown to me, my mother had spoken to her again to make a complete U-turn to say that I had in fact been put into a mental hospital. Stig Lunde feared that it would look bad for me in front of the judge if a police officer swore on oath for a second time that my mother had later made a complete U-turn and told her I had in fact been put into a mental hospital. I knew I had never been "put" (sectioned or otherwise) into a mental hospital and I was shocked at the blackmailing tactics of a police officer to get out of a cross-examination over her perjury - by threatening another perjury. The tape was played next day in court with my mother clearly telling Sorte that it was a lie that she had told Heidi that she had "wanted" to put me into a mental hospital as reported by a Norwegian newspaper.

The transcripts of all my recorded conversations with Sorte are in the possession of the police in Norway and the courts and have been accessible on the internet on my website for years. They clearly contradict Torill Sorte's false witness to the press (see exhibit FED5).

(iv) The quotes in Dagbladet that I had been a patient in a mental hospital for two years were coupled with the statement that I was a "Muslim." There followed immediately a vicious religious hate email campaign from Norway after the public had been told by the newspaper that I had a website giving my side of the story. The website only started in 2000 (which was five years after the first newspaper articles on me in Norway) as a result of the newspapers not printing a word of my side of the story. One journalist, Ingunn Røren of Drammens Tidende, told the Press Complaints Bureau (the PFU) in Norway that she refused to print my response in order "to protect me from myself." The public were not told by the Dagbladet newspaper of the name of my website but the public easily found it for themselves. The emails targeted me and my religion saying e.g. "Go fuck Allah the Camel" and "...do you lick a pig's arsehole clean before digging in."

I submitted a written complaint to my local police in Brentwood (see exhibits in FED6) which was passed on to the Harlow Police Hate Crimes Unit who sent it on to Interpol. It took a year for Interpol Norway (all Norwegian police in effect) to conclude that no one would be prosecuted for the hate crime (see exhibit FED6 from the Harlow Police Hate Crimes Unit). Clearly, however, the newspaper Dagbladet had incited religious hatred and Torill Sorte had played a crucial part in it. The Ministry of Justice were told of the hate email campaign at the time and of Dagbladet's articles and saw fit not to reply or apologise - even to say a simple sorry for the vile abuse I had encountered. This in spite of Minister Knut Storberget's public pronouncements on the need to do more to combat religious hate crime.

(b) It is plain to see that after this event in late December 2005 I had, more than ever, every right in public to call Torill Sorte a liar and dishonest and an abuser and guilty of gross misconduct whilst in public office. I even called her to protest about her duplicity but never used foul language. Yet Sorte then responds to my protests and refutations of her lies by, in 2006, continuing her lies by her all-pervasive "mentally ill" comments on me not just through the Eiker Bladet article of 11 January 2006 by Roy Hansen, but also in Drammens Tidende and to her national radio station NRK. I was not contacted by journalist Roy Hansen at any time, nor by Drammens Tidende or the radio station - all in clear breach of their ethical rules of conduct. The Defendant has known this for several years. Christian Reusch has himself given his unequivocal support to Torill Sorte. But he has misled the High Court of Justice by failing to give a balanced picture to the High Court from facts within his and/or the Ministry's knowledge. Torill Sorte's decade long false mental hospital allegations go beyond the scope of any proper police investigations into whatever her case was. The police were not even interested in looking into the matter in 1996 as Heidi Schøne wanted to drop the case. I did not want to drop the case and insisted that Torill Sorte question Heidi.

4. In paragraph 7 of his Witness Statement Christian Reusch repeats the claim of Norway's national and provincial newspapers in 1995 that I have harassed Heidi Schøne continuously after she returned to Norway in 1982 from being an au-pair in England. The two attached copy letters from Heidi Schøne (then Heidi Overaa) from 1984 (one postdated 22 August 1984 but mistakenly dated by her as 13 August 1983) and postcard from 1985 (see exhibit FED7) clearly show that we had lost contact and that she regards me as a real gentleman and she explicitly expresses her love for me. In 1995 Verdens Gang and Bergens Tidende and Drammens Tidende newpapers were sent these letters in response to their May 1995 articles and said nothing. Yet my behaviour in a further 20 or so Norwegian newspaper articles until 2006 (those that I happened to discover that is) was described thereon in as being 'Sex-terror' from 1982. My character and behaviour were described in the newspapers and by Heidi Schøne as being the polar opposite in every aspect to that described in her letter of 1984 (of which there are more). Yet in 1988 she asked me and my best friend Russell Gilbrook, a third dan in karate, (then the drummer with Alan Price and later for Chris Barber and presently the drummer with Uriah Heep) to assist her against her abusive boyfriend Gudmund Johannessen who had just caused her to make a second attempt on her life. She admitted all this in court yet still said I was, prior to this, another one of her many abusers.

What girl asks someone to travel to her country to help her against the abusive father of her child when that someone is also allegedly an extreme abuser too? She described me in court from 2002 as a rapist, a blackmailer: that if she did not let me "kiss her and touch her breasts" I would tell all her neighbours that she had been sexually abused by her stepmother's father; that I had threatened to kill her young son in a letter (no letter was ever produced) and had "stared hard" at him which she took as a sign of her fear that I would kill her son, Daniel. That I had threatened to kill her neighbours, her friends and family and had written over 400 obscene letters to her (none were written and none were produced). None of these allegations were reported to the police at the time regarding this alleged 'year in year out sex terror': the allegations were reported only to the newspapers in 1995 by Heidi, no doubt for money, and it was only by chance that the newspaper articles were made known to me by a lawyer I was using at the time to investigate Heidi Schøne.

Torill Sorte did not even read the three 1995 newspaper articles until I sent them to her in 1996. Police officer Svein Jensen is on record in March 1996 as saying he did not really believe Heidi Schøne. In August 1990 I visited her and her son and spent a lovely day with them. Heidi told me much about herself and her son and related how she had become a Christian and had been exorcised from the Devil and had spoken in tongues. She apologised for the problems she had inflicted on me and let me cuddle her young son who took out his dummy and gave me a big kiss. Much correspondence followed and Heidi sent me a Christian booklet, (she phoned me to say she had ordered from England) hoping to convert me to Christianity (see exhibit FEDS being the cover of the book and some internal pages). This happy period was conveniently forgotten by Heidi in her 1995 contact with the newspapers - after we fell out in 1994 when I discovered that in 1986 she had told the Norwegian police that I had attempted to rape her. This was not true and she did it in revenge for me writing to her father warning him of her dangerous behaviour (her association with a drug user who was the father of her child was just one aspect). I got some of my own revenge for this false attempted rape allegation by telling her neighbours all about her past.

Then immediately thereafter in May 1995 the stories about me in the newspapers commenced. I therefore have every right to make it quite clear to the public that I am definitely not a sex terrorist or potential child killer. Yet the Ministry of Justice through Christian Reusch, who between them have long since known my side of the story, (see exhibit FED9 being three copy letters to the Minister of Justice himself and one reply from the Ministry in 2005), omit to tell the High Court of my reasons for replying to the national newspaper vilification campaign through blogging on Norwegian newspaper websites. Christian Reusch does not even state a very important fact that Heidi Schøne has been a registered mental patient since 1989. It is also an acknowledged judicial fact that the evidence for all the alleged harassment from 1982-1995 is solely on the basis of Heidi's word. There was no corroboration from any source.

Because, in replying to the public/press, I had described Heidi's past history which included her abortions and sleeping around, the newspapers called me a "sex-obsessed mad man." The very opposite was the case - it was Heidi and the press who were sex obsessed and bigoted. I did not want to have sex with her in England as I had not had sex before and could not have sex with a girl I had recently met who was in such a mess because of her sexual past. The thought of having sex with a girl recovering from her second abortion was a real turn off anyway. I have a letter in my possession in which she acknowledges that she begged me to stay the night with her in England but I did not want to. She was on the pill "just in case" she said.

5. Mention is made by Christian Reusch of my conviction in November 2001 on criminal charges of harassment. What has not been made clear by Christian Reusch, yet is within the knowledge of his honourable Ministry, is the following:

(a) What the Police in Norway term "criminal harassment" is in English law termed a right to reply, of fair comment and freedom of expression in line with the ECHR Article 10 and mirrored in the U.K by the Human Rights Act 1998. I had been especially successful in responding to the Norwegian national newspaper vilification campaign, which response in turn had upset the Norwegian establishment as I had devised a very effective way of getting my message across to the population to point out to their mis-informed public the very unprofessional ways of-their second rate press and police force. I was applauded in emails by a few members of the Norwegian public and urged to continue my website (see exhibit FED10 being three emails as examples).

(b) The Bergens Tidende newspaper article of May 1995 (see exhibit FED11) is clearly in the nature of a hate crime and is a clear incitement to religious hatred making mention of me as a Muslim some nineteen times (when my religion had nothing to do with the story) coupled with comments that I was mentally ill possibly suffering from an extreme case of erotic paranoia. I was not contacted before or after this article by the newspaper and my then lawyer, Karsten Gjone, missed the time limits to sue the three Norwegian newspapers who all wrote similar articles on me in 1995, and Gjone was found guilty of breach of professional conduct by the Norwegian Bar Association in 1999. My replies to these articles by mentioning in detail my accuser Heidi Schøne's past history - made in direct response to her own highly sexualised and salacious and totally false newspaper allegations – was termed harassment by the police and got me a fine of 10,000 Norwegian kroner (£1,000.00), which I refused to pay, and a conviction under Section 390A of the Norwegian Penal Code which is a strict liability offence: sending out true descriptions of someone of a very personal nature is an offence. Let it be noted that my hastily appointed lawyer Harald Wibye tried to get the charge dropped as he argued that the correct charge should have been under Section 390 of the Penal Code which gave a defence of justified comment. The magistrate, one Marianne Djupesland and the police prosecutor were taken by surprise at this request by my lawyer and the magistrate had to retire to her chambers to consult her statutes as she was ignorant of the basis of Section 390. She returned to Court and with no explanation decided Section 390 was not the appropriate section to have charged me with. She would continue with the Section 390A charge and I was duly fined and convicted in absentia.

I told the police in earlier negotiations, when they wanted to do a deal and fine me only 5,000 Norwegian kroner, that as Heidi Schøne had allowed her name and photograph to be printed in her national and provincial press then I had every right to respond in a public way by mentioning her name. The police said that in mentioning her name I was harassing her. I replied to them that if I did not mention her name my right of reply would be meaningless. The fine was given to me in absentia at the local Magistrate's Court in Norway and as Torill Sorte was the chief police witness for the prosecution (again mentioning mental hospital rumours as related to me by my lawyer Harald Wibye) and Heidi Schøne the other witness my conviction is unsafe as Torill Sorte is a proven liar and perjurer and Heidi Schøne's outrageous evidence cannot be seen as safe as she is under a mental disability with obvious motives for revenge. My own evidence for Harald Wibye did not arrive by special recorded delivery post until after he had left for the hearing at the magistrate's court. He had to make do witha minimal four or so faxes from me and other papers from Stig Lunde.

(c) The police prosecution was timed to sabotage my civil libel prosecution of Drammens Tidende (not just Heidi Schøne) due to begin a few weeks later and I had to spend all my spare time preparing for that in England. Moreover I was told that if I was going to turn up at the Magistrate's Court then Heidi Schøne was not going to go, which for me would render the hearing pointless as Heidi Schøne could not be cross-examined. I was not given a suspended prison sentence in 2001 as stated by Christian Reusch. That came in October 2003 for my website which again was a malicious prosecution as under the ECHR Article 10 I have every right to reply to hate crimes and national vilification campaigns occasioned on my person in Norway. The British Embassy officials who visited me in the cells in Drammen supported me on that issue and did not waht me to get the threatened eight months in prison that the Norwegians were intent on giving.me. Another deal was done with the Police who put me under duress insisted that if I did not plead guilty to harassment for having a website in return for an eight month suspended prison sentence (and a promise to take the website down within seven days of my return to the U.K) I would go straight to prison for eight months. But that the offer of a suspended sentence was subject to the magistrate's discretion who may still decide to give me an immediate custodial sentence. So it was a nervous wait before the magistrate until he released me with a suspended sentence. I did not take down the website and can never return to Norway. Several newspapers had, after 1998 in the meantime, printed more front page articles on me without my knowledge and it dawned on me when I found these articles in some cases 5-6 years later (see exhibit FED12 for the national tabloid Verdens Gang from 1998 which I only discovered in 2003) that due to the highly sensationalised vitriolic comments in them I was never going to get a fair civil trial or criminal trial. I had literally become public enemy number one.

6. Mention is made by Christian Reusch that the Court of Appeal judge in October 2003 stated that my civil appeal was by its nature an abuse of the judicial system. (This case related my claim relating to a 14 July 1998 article from Drammens Tidende (see exhibit FED13)).

Where did Christian Reusch get that information from? It is not mentioned in the Court of Appeal judgment by Judge Agnar Nilsen Jr. My civil lawyer, Stig Lunde, did not think that I had abused the system as his ably worded appeal indicated and he appealed to the Supreme Court with the assistance of Judge Agnar Nilsen Jr. The Supreme Court made no mention at all of my appeal to the Court of Appeal or to the Supreme Court being an abuse of the system. The Supreme Court rejected my appeal giving no reasons - but in Norwegian law no reasons are ever given by the Supreme Court if the claim is for under 100,000 Norwegian kroner. I had made a nominal claim against Heidi Schøne as my main claim was against co-defendant Drammens Tidende newspaper in the original writ. (Libel trials are dealt with by judges, not jury, in Norway).

What Agnar Nilsen Jr. did not let me do was cross-examine Heidi Schøne at the Appeal for the four hours that her lawyer had agreed to let me have. The judge allowed me about half an hour and only if he directed the questions at her himself. The whole point of the appeal had been destroyed in those few minutes. The judge said that he wanted the case to be finished early at 1pm on that particular Thursday instead of at the end of Friday. It just so happened that at precisely 1pm on that Thursday the police were waiting at the door of the courtroom to arrest me for my offending website. The judge told me over two years later that he had no idea until afterwards that I was going to be arrested but he did say in our 20 minute telephone conversation that he regretted the hate email campaign. But someone must have told the police of the precise time the trial was to finish, in-time for the magistrate's court to charge me the next day, Friday (after a sleepless night in the cells). Over this nine year period I can honestly say that the whole campaign was an orchestrated campaign of mental torture of my person by the Norwegian establishment. Christian Reusch supports his country's system of judicial/press abuse of my person and religious hate crimes. His silence indicates acquiescence with this assault. I am left with the distinct impression that I have been judged to be an evil Muslim pervert. That will never do. That my appeal on my civil libel claim by way of Application to the ECHR was rejected in 2006 with no reasons given came as a surprise as did the fact that the Norwegian judge at Strasbourg, Mr Sverre Erik Jebens, who voted for Norway, was allowed to sit on the case. The ECHR wrote to tell me he was completely independent from Norway when I questioned why a Norwegian judge sat on a case as one of three judges in an application against Norway. Throughout the 1995-2003 newspaper campaign on me Mr Jebens was in Norway latterly as a judge and formerly as a police prosecutor up to his posting in 2004 to the ECHR. What would he make of my fierce criticism of a legal system he had grown up with and supported? There was a suspicion of bias by his sitting on my case in Strasbourg.

7. My description of Heidi Schøne's past as described in Norwegian and English (see exhibit FED14) was verified as "more or less correct" by Judge Anders Stillof in court in August 2002 and as containing "a core of truth" by her psychiatrist Dr Petter Broch.

8. Christian Reusch has described in paragraph 8 of his Witness Statement the laudable police guidelines when talking to the press. But they have not been followed by Torill Sorte. On the contrary she has encouraged and directly facilitated false and partisan reporting, sustained and nourished falsehoods and covered up her own deceit and gross misconduct preventing the exposure of her as unworthy of public service, deceived the public as to the true facts in a case and thus brought the police service in Norway into disrepute. And she has the support of Christian Reusch.

9. Even the Dagbladet journalist Morten Øverbye has called Torill Sorte "a liar...that's a no brainer" when I told him I have never in fact been in a mental hospital. (See exhibit FED15 being an extract of a transcript of a recorded conversation with Øverbye in 2007).

10. All the above information in this my witness statement has in essence been supplied to the Defendant or its constituent parts and is available on my website which the Norwegian police have looked at for years and still do. It is unbecoming of Christian Reusch to repeat comments that he must surely know are misleading to the High Court. It is incumbent on him to at least state the full facts of the matters he has described to give a balanced picture. I am a solicitor and do not deserve to be treated with such disdain. No newspaper in England would ever react in a similar way to the Norwegian press. The judicial system of natural justice in Norway does not follow the British model in some crucial aspects. The Norwegian judiciary never acknowledged once that it was within my legal rights to reply to the public to vile comments by the press or Heidi Schøne. I might as well have been in Serbia.

11. To indicate Norway's antipathy to the stranger/outsider/Muslim in their midst I enclose three articles from Aftenposten of Norway and one from the Times of London as examples of the trend (see exhibit FED16).

12. Norwegian judicial rulings on me are irrelevant with regard to my claim before the High Court against the Defendant as it is submitted that the rationale behind the Norwegian rulings would offend public policy here and therefore not be recognised by the courts in the United Kingdom.

13. In response to paragraph 10 and exhibit CR1 of Christian Reusch's Witness Statement I say that The United Nations Convention on Jurisdictional Immunities of States and Their Property of 2 December 2004 ("the Convention") is indeed not yet in force. Norway has ratified the Convention but the United Kingdom has not ratified it - only signed it. The Convention does not represent a codification of the present status of customary U.K law. It is not referred to in Civil Procedure Rules 6.36 or 6.37 or 6BPD 3.1 which cover permission to serve out of jurisdiction. The High Court is not obliged to take the Convention into account and it is not the practice to do so. In the case of British Airways Board v. Laker Airways Limited [1985] AC 58 Lord Diplock said: The interpretation of treaties to which the United Kingdom is a party but the terms of which have not either expressly or by reference been incorporated in English domestic law by legislation is not a matter that falls within the interpretive jurisdiction of an English court of law'.

14. In response to the Application dated 12 December 2010 by the Defendant through its solicitor for orders (1) and (2) to be made, I will say that:

(a) in respect of the application for order (1) Master Eastman was correct in making his Order dated 16 July 2010 permitting service of my claim against the Defendant outside the jurisdiction as the Civil Procedure Rules (CPR), as drawn, allow for service out of jurisdiction on a State for a tort where damage was sustained within the jurisdiction as provided for in paragraph 3.1.(9)(a) of Practice Direction 6B - and specifically in connection with the tort of libel as per CPR 6.37.44 which is part of the guidance referred to in CPR 6.37.25. Additionally CPR 6.37.43 specifically mentions negligent or fraudulent misstatement as "damage". Damage to my reputation has been caused as has a form of personal injury by way of mental distress resulting from the libels. I could argue that it was the culmination of a national mental torture campaign against me.

The Civil Procedure Rules do not precisely correspond with the requirements of the State Immunity Act 1978 which has a more restrictive jurisdiction, but the CPR do take account of the said 1978 Act but by design do not allow a State to be immune from the tort of libel. Until the CPR are changed to accommodate the exact requirements of the said 1978 Act the CPR must prevail.

(b) in respect of the application for order (2) my claim is one which may be brought in England and Wales pursuant to Article 5(3) of the Lugano Convention signed on 30 October 2007 by the European Community, Iceland, Switzerland and Norway ("the Convention").

Article 5(3) provides that: 'A person domiciled in a Contracting State may in another Contracting State be sued...in matters relating to tort, delict or quasi-delict, in the Courts for the place where the harmful event occurred'.
Quoting from The Law of Defamation and the Internet (Second Edition 2009) by Matthew Collins, Barrister, Owen Dixon Chambers, Melbourne in paragraph 25.34 on page 345:

'In defamation actions, the 'harmful event' occurs both in the place or places where the defamatory publication is distributed and the place where the publisher is established.'

And in paragraph 25.35:

'Where material is published by a defendant domiciled in a Regulation State or a Convention State to a global audience via the Internet and it can be proved that the material has been read, heard or seen in the United Kingdom Article 5(3) of the Brussels Convention and Article 5(3) of each of the Conventions [which includes the Lugano Convention] will therefore permit a United Kingdom court to exercise jurisdiction over the defendants.'

The 'harmful event' afflicting me is provided by the internet download from google.co.uk when my full name is entered on the google.co.uk search engine and the offending article is available by clicking on the hyperlink Translate this page' appearing as fourth in the list (see exhibit FED17).

15. The bona fides of the Defendant and its concern for justice would be well served by their expressly waiving the immunity they claim for this case and submit to the High Court's jurisdiction.

STATEMENT OF TRUTH
I believe that the facts stated in this witness statement are true.

Farid El Diwany Claimant
4th January 2011

On Sunday 18th March 2007, I phoned Policewoman Torill Sorte on her mobile phone, and it went like this:

Sorte:   Torill.
F.         Yes, hi Torill it’s Farid El Diwany here.
Sorte:    I don’t want …… hello?
F.         Yes… it’s about time I had a word with you about, your, er, newspaper comments isn’t it?
Sorte:   I don’t think I have something to talk to you about.
F.         Well, I certainly have something to talk to you about.  Just because ….
Sorte:   Yes, then you have to write to me.  I don’t talk to you at the phone.
F.         Write to you?
Sorte:   You have to write a letter to me.
F.         You’re not going to reply.  You … you …
Sorte:   Yes…. Send it to Nedre Eiker Lensmannkontrol and I will get it there…I do not want to talk to you.
F.         Well that’s not surprising is it, because writing [about me that I am allegedly] “obviously mentally disturbed” in the newspapers because you’ve lied, er, about all this mental hospital rubbish….
Sorte:   Sorry but I don’t want to talk to you.  If you want to talk to me you have to read [she meant “write”] because I don’t not want to talk to you.
F.         Well you didn’t even talk to me in court. You lied in court again, you know…
Sorte:   Bye bye.

And she put the phone down.  So I called her straight back.  The phone rang three times.

Sorte:   Hello.
F.         Yeah, so why don’t you want to talk over the phone?
Sorte:   Well I ….
F.         Got something to hide have you?
Sorte:   If you call me one more time, I will go to the police OK?
F.         Oh big deal.  And what the hell are they going to do?
Sorte:   Bye bye….
F.         ….. Nothing.

Norway: terror and Islamophobia in the mirror
Sindre Bangstad 22 August 2011

The long and winding road to Anders Behring Breivik