New York Times wins ruling in anthrax libel case

By James Vicini

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court on Monday upheld the dismissal of a libel lawsuit by former Army scientist Steven Hatfill against The New York Times Co. over a series of columns he said implicated him in the 2001 anthrax attacks.

A unanimous three-judge panel of the appeals court based in Richmond, Virginia, sided with the newspaper over the lawsuit that claimed that columns by Nicholas Kristof published in 2002 defamed Hatfill and caused him emotional distress.

Hatfill, a bioterrorism expert who formerly worked at the Army Medical Institute of Infectious Disease at Fort Detrick in Maryland, has denied involvement in the mailings of anthrax-laced letters that killed five people and infected 17 others in the month following the Sept. 11, 2001, hijacked plane attacks.

The letters were sent to several news media offices and two Democratic U.S. Senators.

In 2002, federal law enforcement officials, including Attorney General John Ashcroft, called Hatfill a "person of interest" in the investigation. Hatfill then sued various Justice Department officials, including Ashcroft.

Last month, the Justice Department agreed to pay Hatfill a settlement valued at $5.85 million to drop his lawsuit.

Hatfill filed a separate lawsuit against the newspaper.

But a federal judge in Alexandria, Virginia, threw out the lawsuit. He ruled Hatfill, a public figure, had failed to show that the newspaper acted with malice by knowingly printing falsehoods or recklessly disregarding whether they were false.

The appeals court agreed. It said Hatfill, before and even after the anthrax attacks, had often publicly discussed the threat of bioterrorism and the nation's lack of preparedness for such an attack.

Hatfill therefore qualified as a public figure. He did not demonstrate actual malice by the newspaper, the court said.

"We also conclude that Dr. Hatfill did not present evidence sufficient to prove intentional infliction of emotional distress," the appeals court said.

The anthrax attacks remain unsolved and the FBI's investigation continues.

(Editing by Alan Elsner)