wfn.org | [PCUSANEWS] Slander suit against Abu-Akel is tossed out

[Deeanna Alford <dalford@CTR.PCUSA.ORG>]

 03284
July 16, 2003

Slander suit against Abu-Akel is tossed out

Civil court defers to church process 'vindicating' ex-moderator

by Jerry L. Van Marter

LOUISVILLE - A California court has dismissed a charge of slander against
the Rev. Fahed Abu-Akel, a former moderator of the General Assembly.

Orange County Superior Court ruled on July 9 that it lacked
"subject-matter jurisdiction" over a complaint filed by Paul Rolf Jensen, a
Presbyterian elder and lawyer and a member of St. Andrews Presbyterian
Church in Newport Beach, CA.

Jensen, who has filed more than two dozen complaints against sessions and
officers of the Presbyterian Church (USA) in church courts, charged that
Abu-Akel slandered him in April in a report to the General Assembly Council
about a remedial complaint Jensen had filed for the session of Westminster
Presbyterian Church in Canton, OH (see
www.pcusa.org/pcnews/oldnews/2003/03251.htm).

In response to the accusation, Abu-Akel filed a request for "vindication"
with Greater Atlanta Presbytery, of which he is a member. On July 8, an
investigating committee of the presbytery announced that it had determined
that Abu-Akel had neither slandered nor borne false witness against Jensen
and was, therefore, vindicated (see www.presbyteryofgreateratl.org).

On hearing about the dismissal of Jensen's lawsuit, the Rev. Clifton
Kirkpatrick, stated clerk of the General Assembly, said, "I'm pleased that
the integrity of the former moderator has been upheld, and that the civil
court respected the autonomy and authority of the judicial process within
the church."

Jensen, who lives in Laguna Beach, CA, still has nearly 30 complaints
pending in church courts in which he charges ministers, sessions and
presbyteries with heresy and defiance of the constitution of the
Presbyterian Church (USA). He has vowed to file many more such complaints.

(The Rev. Sharon Youngs, communications officer for the Office of the
General Assembly, contributed to this report)

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