Washington: President Donald Trump filed a lawsuit Monday seeking USD 10 billion in damages from the BBC, accusing the British broadcaster of defamation as well as deceptive and unfair trade practices, the Associated Press reported.
The 33-page lawsuit accuses the BBC of broadcasting a "false, defamatory, deceptive, disparaging, inflammatory, and malicious depiction of President Trump," calling it "a brazen attempt to interfere in and influence" the 2024 US presidential election.
It accused the BCC of "splicing together two entirely separate parts of President Trump's speech on January 6, 2021" in order to "intentionally misrepresent the meaning of what President Trump said."
The BBC apologised to Trump last month over the edit of the Jan. 6 speech. But the publicly funded broadcaster rejected claims it had defamed him.
The lawsuit, filed in a Florida court, seeks $5 billion in damages for defamation and $5 billion for unfair trade practices.
The BBC did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press.
BBC chairman Samir Shah had called it an “error of judgment,” which triggered the resignations of the BBC’s top executive and its head of news.
The speech took place before some of Trump’s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol as Congress was poised to certify President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election that Trump falsely alleged was stolen from him.
The BBC had broadcast the hour-long documentary — titled “Trump: A Second Chance?” — days before the 2024 U.S. presidential election. It spliced together three quotes from two sections of the 2021 speech, delivered almost an hour apart, into what appeared to be one quote in which Trump urged supporters to march with him and “fight like hell.” Among the parts cut out was a section where Trump said he wanted supporters to demonstrate peacefully.