British newspaper to pay Erdogan compensation for false story

Ruling in favor of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's lawsuit against Britain's Daily Telegraph, a British court yesterday ordered the paper to pay 25,000 pounds in compensation. The British high court ruled that the paper failed to ground its allegations that Erdogan had received political contributions from Iran on concrete evidence and that the story was inaccurate. The Daily Telegraph reported last September that Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) had accepted a $25 million in campaign contributions from Iran, and yesterday the paper apologized to Erdogan for the erroneous story. The newspaper's lawyer, Helen Morris, said the Telegraph "accepts that it was misinformed and offers its sincerest apologies to the claimant."