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George Clooney has been accused of hypocrisy in a new court case against his investigative human rights organization, the Sentry.
Ahmed Gadalla, a steel magnate, accused the actor of defamation and failing to comply with the standards he imposes on US media outlets regarding his personal life, the Telegraph reported Monday.
The Liberian businessman, 46, stated the organization published a lengthy report with “false” narratives, accusing him of committing fraud by borrowing $300 million from an Abu Dhabi bank by using Emirati companies.
Gadalla stated the Sentry allegedly failed to check its facts, accusing him of sponsoring Russian mercenaries and money laundering, and refused to report on his response to the allegations against him.
The court docs alleged that the organization “falsely told the world that Mr Gadalla bankrolled a warlord’s assault on his own country’s capital with stolen public money, that he paid Russia’s Wagner Group mercenaries, that he secretly controls three Libyan banks and uses them to commit fraud and launder money, that he oversaw the printing of counterfeit currency in Russia and that he smuggles combat drones and military hardware in violation of a United Nations arms embargo,” per the outlet.
Additionally, the Sentry requested that the European Union impose sanctions on Gadalla so he could be charged in Libya.
Gadalla cited how Clooney, 65, has previously called out the media for “dangerous” and “irresponsible” reporting about his family and failing to fact-check, per the outlet.
“When the false story was about his own family, the Sentry’s co-founder applied a very different standard,” the documents read, citing a 2024 since-deleted article published by the Daily Mail.
The docs claimed that the British tabloid removed the story from its website after two days and issued an apology to Clooney, which he rejected.
“There is one constant when a person or company is caught doing something wrong,” the “Michael Clayton” star said at the time, per the outlet. “The cover-up is always worse.”
A rep for Clooney wasn’t immediately available to Page Six for comment.
The “Up in the Air” star also co-founded the Sentry in 2016 with John Prendergast to shed light on war crimes and human rights abuses, including money laundering from war zones, in a bid to ‘hold the perpetrators and enablers of violence and corruption to account,” per the website.
That same year, Clooney and his wife, Amal, also founded the Clooney Foundation for Justice to provide “free legal aid in defense of free speech and women’s rights in over 40 countries.”
Clooney and the lawyer, who wed in 2014, often keep themselves and their twins, Alexander and Ella, out of the spotlight due to their humanitarian work.
The “Ticket to Paradise” star has been a critic of the media over the years, including in 2009 when he accused several outlets of false reporting.
“The problem is that there is so little reporting anymore, somebody will write a story, and it will be in 1,800 different outlets and you have no recourse,” he said at the London Film Festival, per the Guardian.
“It will be false and you’ll go, ‘it’s not true’ and they’ll go ‘we’re not saying that, we’re saying a London tabloid has said it.’ So they’re just reprinting and reprinting things that aren’t necessarily true.