Murdoch drops Australian media outlet lawsuit for US Capitol assault

Sydney, Australia, Apr 21 (EFE).- Fox Corporation President Lachlan Murdoch withdrew the defamation lawsuit against the Australian media outlet Crickey linked to an opinion article that linked the Murdoch family and the Fox News channel with the violent assault on the United States Capitol in 2021.

The Australian Federal Court marked the process as “suspended/withdrawn” on its website on Friday, days after Fox News agreed to pay more than $780 million in the US to a voting machine company to end another defamation proceedings, this time against the North American chain.

“Lachlan Murdoch has withdrawn his defamation lawsuit against Crikey. He will pay Crikey’s legal costs. Both we and our client are very satisfied,” said the Marque Lawyer firm, which represented Private Media, a group to which Crickey belongs.

Murdoch’s lawyer John Churchill said in a statement Friday that while his client was “confident he would win” the lawsuit against the Australian outlet, he did not want “Crikey to continue using the court” for a campaign designed to “attract subscribers and increase your profits.”

Murdoch sued Private Media in August over the article titled “Trump Is A Confirmed Insane Traitor. And Murdoch Is His Unindicted Co-Conspirator,” published Jun. 29, 2022.

Murdoch’s lawyers claimed the article insinuated the businessman illegally conspired with former US President Donald Trump to incite a mob to march on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 to prevent confirmation of the 2020 election results, where Trump lost.

Recently, Crickey’s representatives sought to add to the case thousands of documents about the process that ended Tuesday with the aforementioned agreement between Fox and the company Dominion Voting Systems. It accused the television network of spreading falsehoods about alleged fraud in the American elections of 2020.

“In that case, in the US state of Delaware, the judge ruled that the events of Jan. 6, 2021 at the Capitol were not relevant,” Churchill said Friday.

Murdoch’s lawyer also said Dominion “made it clear he would not argue that Fox News caused the events of Jan. 6, and at no time did he argue that Mr. Murdoch was personally responsible” for what happened.

“However, this is what Crikey’s article alleged and what Crikey tries to argue in Australia,” added the lawyer for the son of tycoon Rupert Murdoch, who controls a large part of the media in Australia with his conglomerate. EFE

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