PALESTINIAN SUES ACTOR SACHA BARON COHEN OVER BRUNO ‘TERRORIST SLUR’
10 December 2009
Bruno’s interview with Ayman Abu Aita as featured in the film.
BY ALISON CHUNG
Sky News
A Palestinian shopkeeper portrayed as a terrorist in the movie Bruno is suing the film’s star Sacha Baron Cohen for libel.
Ayman Abu Aita has filed a $110m (£70m) lawsuit against the British comedian at a US federal court.
In the movie, Baron Cohen, who plays an un-politically correct Austrian fashion journalist trying to make it big in America, interviews Mr Abu Aita.
During the interview, the Bethlehem grocery shop owner is labelled in a caption as a member of the militant al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade.
Mr Aita denies ever having any association with the terrorist group.
He also named David Letterman and his production company, Worldwide Pants, in the lawsuit.
Before Bruno was released, Baron Cohen appeared on the Late Show With David Letterman to plug the movie.
During the interview, Baron Cohen discussed Bruno’s encounter with a “terrorist”.
He also said he had set up the meeting at a secret location in the West Bank with the help of a CIA agent, and that the star feared for his safety.
However, the interview took place at a hotel in a part of the West Bank that was under Israeli military control.
Sky News foreign affairs editor Tim Marshall , who revealed Mr Aita’s anger at his portrayal in the film earlier this year, said: “The interview took place at the Everest Hotel near Bethlehem. The film company hired the top floor and moved in all their equipment.
“Hardly a secret location, especially as 50 yards from the hotel is an Israeli school with an army checkpoint outside it.”
During the interview, Bruno tells Mr Aita he thinks Osama bin Laden is like a “dirty wizard or a homeless Santa”. When the Palestinian says he does not understand, Bruno’s translator says Mr Aita has told them to leave immediately.
The lawsuit says any accusations or insinuations that Mr Aita is or ever was associated with the al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade, or any other terrorist activity, is “utterly false and untrue”.
Lawyer Joseph Drennan said Mr Aita was never offered a release to sign to appear in the film.
“This is an important lawsuit because it is about the dignity of a specific person. It is about his reputation, about his standing in the community,” Mr Drennan said.
“It addresses a very corrosive and calumnious slur against any young Palestinian who would be a political activist on the West Bank.”
Mr Drennan says he expects a hearing on Mr Aita’s complaint in January.
Baron Cohen has faced a string of similar legal claims since his 2006 film Borat, but most have been thrown out of court.
One of the lawsuits was filed by a group of residents in a remote Romanian village who said they were misled into thinking the project was a documentary about poverty.
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