Prominent Northern Ireland media lawyer Paul Tweed has received a public apology from an academic who accused him of conducting “lawfare” in order to intimidate critics of the United Arab Emirates.
In an apology read out in the Northern Ireland High Court yesterday (19 March) on his behalf, Andreas Krieg, a senior lecturer at King’s College London’s School of Security Studies, admitted to making a “number of false, unfair and defamatory allegations and inferences” relating to Tweed’s legal work.
“I regret that Mr Tweed was collateral damage in my critical agenda relating to the UAE,” the statement added.
As well as retracting the allegations, made in his book Subversion: The Strategic Weaponization of Narratives and posting an apology on X, Krieg has agreed to request that the book’s publisher, Georgetown University Press, remove the offending wording from the online version of the book, future editions and that existing copies of the current edition are removed from circulation and destroyed.
Krieg has also agreed to make a donation to Reporters Without Borders and pay costs of £150,001.
Welcoming the apology, Tweed said in a statement: “My sole concern had been to vindicate my reputation, not to seek monetary damages. In that context, no financial compensation has been pursued. Instead, Dr Krieg has made a discretionary donation to Reporters Without Borders (RSF), at my request.
“Finally, I would point out that no lawyer should come under attack for doing their job, as it serves only to undermine the rule of law and integrity of the entire legal system.”
The apology followed a High Court judgment last September, which found that Krieg, who defended the claim over the meaning of his statements about Tweed, had failed to acknowledge the lawyer’s “proper and legitimate role in acting on behalf of his client” and that a “reasonable hypothetical reader of this text would conclude… the plaintiff acted unprofessionally…”
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