Muslim group suing Ballenger

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Muslim group suing Ballenger
Organization says comments about terror threat were defamatory
TIM FUNK
Observer Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON - A leading American Muslim civil rights group has filed a defamation lawsuit against Rep. Cass Ballenger for linking the group to terrorists during an October 2003 interview with The Charlotte Observer.

The Hickory Republican blamed the breakup of his 50-year marriage partly on the stress of living near the group's Capitol Hill headquarters, which was so close to the U.S. Capitol that he and his wife worried "they could blow the place up."

The Council on American-Islamic Relations said in its suit -- filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia -- that these and other comments by Ballenger, 76, damaged its reputation and good name.

"(Ballenger's) statement was calculated to ... hold CAIR up to public scorn, hatred and ridicule," said the lawsuit, which asks for $2 million to compensate the group for damages and to punish Ballenger

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http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/news/local/7409248.htm