Nobel Winner Sues Bookseller

The Protestant politician who shared last year's Nobel Peace Prize filed a lawsuit Wednesday against the British division of Amazon.com for selling a book that brands him a criminal.

David Trimble is repeatedly identified in the book, The Committee: Political Assassination in Northern Ireland, as an adviser to a secret Protestant committee that plotted the killings of Catholics in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

The writ filed in London by Trimble's lawyer seeks a permanent ban on the bookseller listing the book, an apology and unspecified damages for the Ulster Unionist Party leader.

Amazon.co.uk Ltd. -- the British division of Seattle-based Amazon.com, the world's top Internet bookseller -- announced late Tuesday it would withdraw the book, at least temporarily.

Â"We have been put on notice that the book contains defamatory allegations,Â" the division's managing director, Simon Murdoch, said in a statement.

Murdoch noted that if it kept selling the book, Amazon might be obliged to try to defend its many allegations in court.

Â"As we have no way of proving or disproving any such allegations, we have no option but to withdraw this book from our catalog,Â" he said.

The book, written by Northern Ireland-born Sean McPhilemy and published last year by Niwot, Colo.-based Roberts Rinehart, alleges that Trimble headed the secret group's Â"political wing.Â"

No British or Irish publisher has distributed the book for fear that its unproven allegations would invite lawsuits.

Â"Amazon is saying they've stopped selling the book here for the moment. That, of course, is not good enough. It must be permanent,Â" said Trimble's lawyer, Jason McCue, who has persuaded several British booksellers to drop the title from their international Web pages.

Â"We want an apology in open court for their marketing of repulsive lies,Â" McCue said.

In an accompanying statement, Trimble said he was Â"forced to bear the burden of many lies that arise out of my being in political office.Â"

But he said Â"The magnitude of the horrendous allegations made about me in the book are such that I cannot ignore them. As much as the false allegations damage my reputation, they belittle the peace process and mock all those who have been a part of it.Â"

McCue said he had advised Trimble to delay any libel action in U.S. courts because the law there requires public figures t prove defamatory falsehoods were published maliciously, a much harder task.

Still, two Protestant auto dealers identified in The Committee as financial backers of the alleged murder conspiracy have been pursuing a $100 million libel action against McPhilemy in a Washington court.