Hackney journalist cleared of fondling woman’s bottom said she was “no Pamela Anderson.”

Emma Bartholomew, Senior Reporter Wednesday, July 11, 2012
3:56 PM

A political journalist has been cleared of fondling a woman’s bottom in a supermarket, after claiming he was the victim of a government conspiracy.

Mohammed Tamalt, 36, of Leabank Square, Hackney Wick said his alleged victim was recruited to set him up because he wrote “embarrassing” articles about the UK, US, Saudi and Kuwaiti governments.

Tamalt was said to have lunged forward and rubbed the woman’s backside in circular motions when she bent down to look at a packet of rice on January 6 at Tesco’s in Morning Lane.

The woman told Snaresbrook Crown Court when she shouted at him he pretended to be mentally ill.

Tamalt left the store, but moments later he was detained by security before police arrested him.

Giving evidence Tamalt told jurors he never touched her because she was at least eight years older than him and “no Pamela Anderson.”

A jury took just one and a half hours to find Tamalt not guilty of sexual assault last Wednesday, July 4, and he thanked them and God as the verdict was announced.

The Algerian-born author, who accused the US Ambassador to Syria, Robert Ford, of being a CIA agent in an article published on website The Arab Digest, told the court the victim’s statement contained lies.

“I believe this is because she has been paid by some of the governments which I’m not happy with and which I write about.

“I have written about social, political and financial corruption which they did not like.”

He insisted he had not pretended to be mentally ill, adding: “She didn’t let me speak at all, she just said, “You are crazy”.

“There is no way to communicate with someone like that so I just decided to walk off, I didn’t want to escalate the situation.”