The Sun Newspaper has today finally issued an apology over its front page story, published earlier this year, that extremist Muslims in the UK had drawn up a ‘hit-list’ of prominent Jews in retaliation for Israel’s invasion of Gaza.

The story was fed to the newspaper by an ‘anti-terrorism’ expert Glen Jenvey, but was twisted and sensationalised by the tabloid paper.

The story unravelled after the blogger Tim Ireland investigated it further and found that Glen Jenvey was the person posting messages on Muslim messageboards and pretending to be an extremist Muslim.

The Sun has still tried to twist the story to its own advantage. In an apology published today it stated:

A PHONEY terrorism “expert” has confessed to duping newspapers and a senior politician.
Glen Jenvey has admitted making up stories about Islamic fundamentalism, including a faked list of prominent Jewish “targets”, which included Lord Alan Sugar.

He revealed his scheming in an interview with BBC reporter Tom Mangold, aired on Sunday’s edition of Donal MacIntyre’s Radio Five Live show.

Jenvey told how he fabricated the list of Jewish targets by posing as a fundamentalist on an extremist website where he urged others to suggest names.

He then leaked the made-up list to a trusted news agency, used by The Sun, and online forum Ummah.com was wrongly accused of being used to prepare a backlash against UK Jews.

Jenvey – who had been described as “an extremely capable and knowledgeable analyst” by Tory MP Patrick Mercer – said: “I’m fully responsible for the story. The Sun was deceived.

“The Sun did not know that I was behind the postings.

“I would like to apologise to all the British Jews who we scared and I’d like to apologise to The Sun newspaper.”

There is background to the story by Richard Bartholomew here, with a link to the 5 Live programme.

There is more on Bloggerheads, where Tim Ireland is wrapping up the story.

Reader comments

1. Liberal Conspiracy

   Article:: Sun finally apologises over Jewish ‘hit-list’ story http://bit.ly/g20Xf

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2. sunny hundal

   Perhaps @SDBrook can be persuaded to update story on Alan Sugar and credit @bloggerheads for forcing Sun retraction? http://is.gd/3iI7X

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3. links for 2009-09-16 « Rumblegumption

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