MOSLEY WINS LAWSUIT.(FIA president Max Mosley)

FIA president Max Mosley won his case for breach of privacy against News of the World, the British tabloid newspaper that claimed there was a Nazi element to Mosley's activities. Mosley did not deny that he was involved in a sadomasochistic orgy with five prostitutes on March 28. He admitted that he has been interested in S&M for 45 years, and that his wife of 47 years did not know until the story came out.

Mosley won [pounds sterling]60,000 approximately $120,000 and did not win his unprecedented claim for "punitive exemplary damages.'' The newspaper also will have to pay Mosley's court costs of $900,000, in addition to its own of $800,000.

The paper contended that the Nazi element and Mosley's role as the head of an international organization meant that the public had a right to know, and that justified their expose.

However, its position was weakened when the girl who filmed and recorded the activities declined to testify that there was a Nazi connotation to the ordeal. She allegedly was paid $24,000 to provide the material for the story.

The judge hearing the case, Sir David Eady, decided that despite the presence of uniforms and German accents, there was no clear evidence of a Nazi connection. Mosley's late father, Sir Oswald Mosley, was the founder of the British Union of Fascists and socialized with Adolf Hitler. Mosley contended that he and the prostitutes acted out a German prison fantasy but that it did not involve any Nazi themes.

Mosley followed up the verdict by suing the paper for libel and also has filed a claim against Germany's Bild.

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