Judges ordered British frontman Tommy Robinson to pay £ 100,000 ($ 138,000) to a Syrian student after ruling Thursday that he defamed the boy.
Jamal Hijazi, 18, was attacked in the playground at Almondbury Community School in Huddersfield, northern England, in October 2018.
Shortly after the video of the incident went viral, Robinson, who is actually Stephen Yaxley Lennon, claimed in two Facebook videos that Hijazi himself was a violent criminal who “assaulted young English girls in their school”.
In the videos, which were watched by nearly a million people, 38–year–old Robinson also claimed that Hijazi “hit a black and blue girl” and “threatened to stab another boy at her school“. The allegations were rejected by the court on Thursday.
Robinson, who represented himself, claimed that his comments were generally true and said he uncovered “dozens of reports of aggressive, abusive and fraudulent behavior” by Hijazi. But Supreme Court Justice Matthew Nicklin said Robinson failed to prove his allegations and ruled in Hijazi’s favor, awarding him £ 100,000 ($ 137,000) in damages and ordering Robinson to pay the costs required by law enforcement agencies. News from the Palestinian Authority, it’s over £ 500,000 ($ 689,000).
