Azerbaijan sued CNN for defamation over a bombshell report claiming that Israel had operated drone and commando teams against Iran out of its territory.
In June, CNN published a report claiming that dozens of Mossad operatives and Israeli commandos were operating out of a secret base in southern Azerbaijan, through which they carried out intelligence gathering missions and even drone assassinations. Baku vehemently denied the report at the time, and stepped up its denials this week, filing a defamation lawsuit in the US District Court for the District of Delaware.
The lawsuit claimed the CNN report put Azerbaijan in danger of attack from Iran through the publication of the “false” information.
“CNN’s claims in this regard are demonstrably and knowingly false and recklessly exacerbate geopolitical tensions in an already volatile region,” the lawsuit read.
It claimed to have attempted a resolution to the matter through multiple avenues out of court, but was ignored by the outlet.
“Ultimately, CNN has simply ignored Azerbaijan’s multiple attempts to resolve this matter by retracting, thereby recklessly endangering Azerbaijan and its people,” the lawsuit read, later adding, “CNN’s false claims are precisely calibrated to draw Azerbaijan into a regional war.”
It also argued that one of the authors of the report had engaged in false and defamatory reporting about Azerbaijan previously, primarily around its conduct during the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War.
“CNN was and is fully aware of Lister’s anti-Azerbaijan bias,” the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit runs into an odd legal problem: whether a foreign government can even sue for defamation, especially as it’s already been settled that the U.S. government cannot. Azerbaijan acknowledged that this matter hasn’t been settled by the Supreme Court or district courts.
While not disputing that the U.S. government can’t sue for defamation, it argued that this rule “is a creature of the First Amendment’s protection of the American public’s right to criticize its own government free from the threat of seditious-libel liability. Its rationale has no application to a foreign sovereign, which is not accountable to the American electorate.”
“As a sovereign state recognized by the United States and with which the United States maintains peaceful relations, Azerbaijan may sue in U.S. courts; a well-established legal principle dating back centuries,” the lawsuit said.
Justifying this, it pointed to the landmark 1870 Supreme Court case The Sapphire, 78 U. S. 164 (1870), which concerned a lawsuit brought in the name of French Emperor Napoleon III against the American ship Sapphire, which collided with the French transport Euryale in San Francisco harbor in 1867.
“The first question raised is as to the right of the French Emperor to sue in our courts. On this point, not the slightest difficulty exists,” Supreme Court Justice Joseph Bradley wrote in the court’s opinion at the time. “A foreign sovereign, as well as any other foreign person, who has a demand of a civil nature against any person here may prosecute it in our courts. To deny him this privilege would manifest a want of comity and friendly feeling.”
After Napoleon III was deposed, the court decided that the lawsuit still applied, as the head of the sovereign state served as a proxy for the nation itself.
The Washington Examiner reached out to the Azerbaijani Embassy for comment.
Iran launched a drone attack against Azerbaijan early in the war, triggering harsh denunciations and speculation that Azerbaijan could enter the war. Diplomatic talks ultimately calmed tensions, and no further attacks occurred.