Australian politician settles defamation suit with Lankan student

Colombo (News 1st): Australian politician Mark Latham has settled a defamation suit with a Sri Lankan student at the University of NSW he accused of plotting to kill senior federal MPs. According to the Sydney Morning Herald PhD student 26-year-old Mohamed Nizamdeen, who sued Latham in the Federal Court over multiple tweets from the former Labor leader in August last year, said that the politician’s allegations were defamatory. Nizamdeen was charged with terrorism offences following the discovery of a notebook containing potential plans to attack Sydney landmarks and plots to kill former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull and his former deputy Julie Bishop. But the accusations were later dropped and Nizamdeen was cleared of any wrongdoing, with police instead charging Arsalan Khawaja, the brother of Australian cricket star Usman Khawaja, over the plot which turned out to be fake. Nizamdeen's lawyer said, a court hearing was due to begin this week but Latham and Nizamdeen signed off on a confidential settlement. Lawyer Moustafa Kheir of Birchgrove Legal said: "We are pleased to announce that the claim against Mr Latham is now settled."