(London) The BBC announced on Monday that it had filed an appeal for annulment following a complaint from American President Donald Trump concerning a misleading video montage of one of his speeches broadcast by the British public broadcasting group.
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“We have always said that we would defend ourselves vigorously (…) so we challenged the jurisdiction of the Florida court and filed a motion to dismiss the president’s complaint,” said a BBC spokesperson in a short statement.
The British group argues that “the documentary was never broadcast in Florida, nor in the United States. It was not available on (its video-on-demand platform) iPlayer, nor online, nor on any other American streaming platform,” the spokesperson added.
The BBC had already indicated in January that it intended to challenge the validity of the American president’s complaint.
Just before the 2024 American presidential election, the group broadcast, in a documentary of its flagship investigative program Panoramaexcerpts from a speech given by Donald Trump on January 6, 2021, the date of the assault on the Capitol by his supporters to prevent the certification of the victory of his opponent, Democrat Joe Biden.
Separate excerpts of the speech were edited in such a way that the outgoing Republican president appeared to explicitly call on his supporters to storm the Capitol in Washington.
Donald Trump filed a complaint in December in a federal court in Florida, accusing the British public broadcasting group of defamation and violation of a trade practices law. He is seeking damages of $5 billion for each of the two reasons.
BBC Chairman Samir Shah sent a letter of apology to Donald Trump in November and the BBC said it “sincerely regrets the way in which the images were edited”. The affair prompted the resignation of BBC director general Tim Davie and BBC News boss Deborah Turness.
The US president has in the past launched or threatened to launch lawsuits against several media groups in the United States, some of which have paid large sums to end the lawsuits.
