LONDON, Jan 25: The Daily Telegraph on Wednesday lost its libel appeal against flamboyant British anti-Iraq war lawmaker George Galloway over its report that he accepted large sums of money from Saddam Hussein’s government. The court of appeal rejected the paper’s argument that its allegations were in the public interest and upheld a damages award of 150,000 pounds granted to Mr Galloway by the High Court in Dec 2004.

The Telegraph reported in 2003 that Mr Galloway had received 375,000 pounds from Saddam’s government via the United Nations oil-for-food program, allegations based on documents the paper said its reporter had found in a wrecked government office in Baghdad.

“There is a word for taking money from enemy regimes: treason,” the paper said in an editorial column.—AFP