A British politician has accepted libel damages from an American newspaper over a story which alleged he took $10 million to support former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
Mr George Galloway, one of Britain's most outspoken anti-war campaigners, sued the Christian Science Monitor over an article in April last year.
The story cited documents given to a journalist by an Iraqi general which purported to show Mr Galloway had received payments in return for his "courageous and daring stands against the enemies of Iraq".
Mr Galloway's lawyer Mr Mark Bateman accepted a formal apology during a brief hearing at the High Court in London. "The allegations... that (he) opposed the UN-imposed sanctions on Iraq and, thereafter, the recent conflict in Iraq, because he had been paid by the Iraqi regime, are false and without foundation," Mr Bateman told the court.
He said the Monitor now accepted there was no truth in the allegations and had paid the MP substantial, undisclosed damages.
The daily newspaper, founded in 1908, is owned and published by the First Church of Christ, Scientist, based in Boston, Massachusetts. The church said it "deeply regretted" publishing the article.
"The Christian Science Monitor published the article based on documents which it believed were genuine, but which it now accepts were forgeries," the publisher's lawyer Ms Julia Schoepflin, told the court.
Mr Galloway was expelled from the Labour Party last October after branding Prime Minister Tony Blair and US President George W. Bush "wolves".