(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) CNN has turned to a baffling legal defense in a $1 billion defamation lawsuit: Sharia law, specifically that of the Taliban.
The lawsuit, filed by Navy veteran Zachary Young, accuses CNN of falsely reporting that his company profited from efforts to rescue vulnerable women and children from Afghanistan.
Last week, CNN filed a summary judgment motion defending its reporting as accurate and not defamatory because removing individuals from Afghanistan is illegal under Taliban-imposed Sharia.
“Discovery has indicated that those activities he orchestrated and funded, which involved moving women out of Afghanistan, almost certainly were illegal under Taliban rule,” wrote CNN attorney Deana Shullman, according to Radar Online and the conservative Media Research Center.
CNN conceded that the Taliban’s law holds no standing in the U.S. judicial system, but claimed the court should consider the Taliban’s side of the story.
The Taliban, a radical Islamist group, took control of Afghanistan after President Joe Biden’s disastrous withdrawal of U.S. troops in 2021.
Their strict interpretation of Sharia law strictly restricts the rights of women and girls and prohibits freedom of expression and religious practice.
Members of the LGBT are viciously persecuted, at times facing detention and torture, according to Radio Free Europe. Other individuals can even be stoned and flogged, according to Amnesty International.
The lawsuit against CNN originated after Jake Tapper aired a segment on The Lead that accused Young’s company, Nemex Enterprises Inc., of charging high fees to rescue stranded Afghans.
“As CNN’s Alex Marquardt has discovered, Afghans trying to get out of the country, face a black market full of promises, demands of exorbitant fees, and no guarantee of safety or success,” Tapper said in the report, which aired on Nov. 11, 2021.
Marquardt specifically singled out Young’s company, alleging it offered high fees for rescue services and that Young “repeatedly declined to break down the cost or say if he is making money.”
Internal communications among CNN reporters revealed Marquardt’s alleged plot “to nail this Zachary Young mfucker [sic].” Other texts suggested that CNN staff themselves criticized the story as “80% emotion, 20% obscured fact,” and “full of holes like Swiss cheese.”
Young could be awarded nearly $1 billion in damages if the lawsuit succeeds.
