Judge tosses libel case against WSJ

A state court judge in New York threw out a case in which a prominent antiquities dealer accused The Wall Street Journal’s publisher of libel.

Corinne Ramey of The Journal reports, “The ruling stemmed from a 2017 Journal article that said dealer Hicham Aboutaam and his brother were being investigated by law-enforcement officials. The article said Swiss, French and Belgian authorities were probing whether the brothers had handled Syrian and Iraqi objects looted under the auspices of the extremist group Islamic State.

“A few months later, Mr. Aboutaam sued Dow Jones & Co., the publisher of the Journal, saying his business and reputation were damaged by the article. In a complaint filed in state Supreme Court in New York, he said he had never knowingly bought or sold items that were later determined to have been looted by terrorists.

“In his ruling on Tuesday, Justice Robert Kalish said the decision to report on an ongoing law-enforcement investigation is a question of journalistic judgment.”

Read more here.