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‘Bridge Too Far’: Defamation Judge Throws Out CNN’s Sharia Law Defense
In a major order filed Tuesday in the $1 billion defamation case against CNN, and exclusively obtained by NewsBusters, Judge William Scott Henry of Florida’s 14th Circuit Court threw out CNN’s desperate attempt to cite Taliban Sharia law in their defense. Judge Henry also ordered that Plaintiff and Navy veteran Zachary Young “did not act illegally or criminally.”
As NewsBusters was first to report back in August, the Cable News Network took to citing Taliban Sharia law in order to defend suggestions made in their offending report; that Young was engaged in criminal activity when he was working to help rescue women and children from Afghanistan following U.S. withdrawal and the Taliban sweeping back into power.
In their filing citing Sharia law, CNN listed off a series of illegal activities Young, the other operatives, and the people fleeing the Taliban were allegedly guilty of, including “avoiding the Taliban,” “mak[ing] it past the Taliban checkpoints,” and keeping “people hidden from the Taliban”—i.e., all activities that were illegal in Afghanistan at the time.”
While Judge Henry noted that CNN’s accusation of Young being involved in a “black market” was not something the Court was in position to make ruling on “at this time,” he describe their citation of Sharia law as “a bridge too far”:
First, there is nothing in the record to suggest that any Taliban or Sharia law which would restrict the movement of persons (especially women) within or out of Afghanistan was properly enacted, adopted or recognized law to even suggest that evacuating individuals from Afghanistan was a criminal or illegal activity. In fact, the only information contained in the record suggests that formal adoption of any rules restricting travel within or out of Afghanistan did not occur until 2024 – almost three years after the publications in this case.
In August of this year, CNN republished an Associate Press report which admitted that the Taliban had only recently gotten around to implementing Sharia law’s travel restrictions on women.
“Further, Defendant did not plead the application of any foreign law to this case,” Judge Henry added.
That point essentially meant that CNN did not properly argue that Taliban Sharia law was the basis of what was being referenced in their report at the start of the case, two years ago; this line of defense only cropped up this summer.
Judge Henry also dispelled any notion that Young had engaged in any illegal activity:
As originally phrased, the Court is not in a position to determine that Young did not operate in a black market as it is not determining what black market means as a matter of law. However, as the argument was nuanced and modified in the Motion and at hearing, the Court can conclude that Young did not act criminally or illegally.
(...)
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Defendant’s corporate representative acknowledged that Defendant’s reporting did not uncover illegal or criminal activity committed by Young. Accordingly, there is no dispute as to material fact that Young did not act illegally or criminally.
As NewsBusters reported in late August, Judge Henry appeared skeptical of CNN’s Sharia Law defense when questioning CNN’s lead counsel Deanna Shullman (of Shullman Fugate PLLC). He compared the situation in Afghanistan to a Mexican drug cartel taking over a town:
So, in Mexico, if a cartel is restricting people from going somewhere and you run your car out of town against the cartels “law,” are you saying that somebody did something illegal by leaving that town because the cartel said no you can't go? I mean, that that seems to be the equivalent of what you're suggesting here.
He also questioned the validity of the Taliban’s supposed laws, wondering how one could know what they were and/or if they were codified anywhere:
And where I, I mean, if I, you know, if I'm saying somebody did something illegal in the state of Florida. I point to some chapter and some section, sub subsection of a statute that says this in Florida makes it illegal. Where does it say in Taliban law adopted in Afghanistan in 2021, the fall of 2021, that this is illegal to do?
The case is still on track for their January 6, 2025 trial start date.
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