Con Coughlin

Con Coughlin is a journalist and author. He was born on January 14, 1955 in London, England, the son of the distinguished Daily Telegraph crime correspondent C.A. Coughlin. The eldest of four children (his younger brother is Vincent Coughlin QC) he grew up in Upminster, Essex. Raised as a Roman Catholic, at the age of 11 he won a scholarship to Christ’s Hospital where he spent seven happy years and developed a life-long love of music (he plays guitar and piano) and sport (he is a devoted West Ham United supporter). At 18 he won a scholarship to read Modern History at Brasenose College, Oxford, where he specialised in the Industrial Revolution under the tutelage of the acclaimed historian Simon Schama and captained the college soccer team.

After graduating with an upper second, in August 1977 Coughlin joined the prestigious Thomson Regional Newspapers graduate trainee course (Richard Sambrook, the BBC’s Director of Global Affairs, is a direct contemporary) and after undertaking his initial training in Cardiff served out his indentures as a trainee reporter with the Reading Evening Post. He eventually became the newspaper’s crime correspondent and broke a number of major stories that attracted national coverage. As a result, Coughlin was offered a position on the Daily Telegraph as a general news reporter, and he joined the staff in November 1980.

Journalist

Coughlin has spent most of his journalistic career working for what is now the Telegraph Media Group.

As a young reporter based at the Daily Telegraph’s Fleet Street offices he was initially given responsibility for covering a number of major crime stories, such as the arrest of Peter Sutcliffe, the notorious Yorkshire Ripper and the Brixton riots

Having proved his ability as a reporter, Coughlin was soon travelling the world as a foreign correspondent, and his first big assignment was to cover the American invasion of Grenada in late 1983. From there he was sent to Beirut to cover the Lebanese civil war where he developed his life-long interest in the Middle East and international terrorism. After the Telegraph group was bought in 1985 by the Canadian businessman Conrad Black Coughlin was appointed the Daily Telegraph’s Middle East correspondent by Max Hastings, the newspaper’s new editor.

Coughlin opened the newspaper’s new bureau in Jerusalem, and spent the next three years covering a multitude of stories throughout the region. In April 1986 he narrowly escaped being kidnapped by Hizbollah gunmen in Beirut, the day before another British journalist John McCarthy was kidnapped. In March 2009 Coughlin recalled this experience in a programme for BBC Radio 4, My Alter Ego. In 1989 Coughlin returned to London, where he transferred to the Sunday Telegraph and was appointed the newspaper’s chief foreign correspondent. During the next few years he received several promotions, becoming Foreign Editor in 1997 and Executive Editor in 1999. The following year the Sunday Telegraph won the prestigious “newspaper of the year” award at the British Press Awards.

In 2006 Coughlin rejoined the Daily Telegraph as the newspaper’s Defence and Security Editor after a brief spell writing for the Daily Mail, and later that year was promoted Executive Foreign Editor. He writes a weekly column, Inside Abroad, and comments on a broad range of subjects, with a special interest in defence and security issues, the Middle East and international terrorism.

He now maintains a blog on the Daily Telegraph's website.

Author

Coughlin is also the author of several books. His first book, Hostage: The Complete Story of the Lebanon Captives (Little, Brown 1992) was an immediate critical success, and was followed by his study of the politics of modern Jerusalem, A Golden Basin Full of Scorpions (Little, Brown, 1997), which was BBC correspondent John Simpson’s “book of the year” and was described as “excellent, a brilliant book” by the distinguished author and critic A.N. Wilson.

In 2002 Coughlin published a biography of Saddam Hussein. The American edition, Saddam: King of Terror (ECCO) was a New York Times bestseller in 2003, and received international critical acclaim.

His next book, American Ally: Tony Blair and the War on Terror (ECCO, 2006) was nominated Kirkus Reviews books of the year. In 2009 Coughlin published Khomeini’s Ghost (Macmillan, London, and ECCO, New York) a study of the life of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and his impact on the radicalisation of the Islamic world during the past thirty years. Historian Dominic Sandbrook, reviewing Khomeini's Ghost in The Observer, writes: "Readers already familiar with recent Iranian history will not discover much new information in Coughlin's account, but it nevertheless makes a very readable and entertaining introduction to a nation badly misunderstood in the west. And while Coughlin makes no secret of his deep antipathy to the Iranian regime, his treatment of its founder is satisfyingly nuanced".

In addition Coughlin has regularly written for several other publications including the Spectator, the Daily Mail, the Wall Street Journal and Atlantic Monthly. He has also appeared regularly on television and radio in Britain and the United States. During the 2003 Iraq War he was an analyst for CNN, and then became a foreign affairs analyst for MSNBC and NBC. In Britain he broadcasts regularly for the BBC and Sky News.

Criticism

Coughlin has attracted more criticism than many of his peers, whether this is due to the quality of his reporting or merely the fact that it is contentious remains a matter of debate. Coughlin himself maintains that his critics are politically motivated, whilst they in turn allege that he himself places a political agenda above accuracy.

In 2006 when Coughlin claimed to reveal exclusive details about the activities of former Guantanamo detainee Moazzem Begg prior to his detention by coalition forces in Afghanistan, The Guardian journalist Victoria Brittain, who co-authored Begg’s book, accused Coughlin of making poorly researched and false claims that misreported Begg's experiences.

Gadaffi legal case

Another example of the controversy Coughlin’s journalism has provoked was the response in November 1995 to an article Coughlin, then the Sunday Telegraph's chief foreign correspondent, published alleging that Saif Qaddafi was involved in a massive criminal operation with Iranian officials that involved counterfeit notes and money laundering in Europe based on information received by British intelligence and banking officials.

There was a reaction to this article in this British press, followed by a British court case in 2002, which was resolutely defended by the Telegraph Group and was eventually settled out of court without any damages being paid, and with both sides agreeing to pay their own costs.

Unsubstantiated allegations on the true origins of that article were first disclosed by Mark Hollingsworth, the biographer of the notorious MI5 whistleblower David Shayler. Shayler working on MI5's Libya desk at the time, in liaison with his counterparts in the foreign espionage service (MI6), had come away with a detailed knowledge of events, including secret documents. Coughlin had falsely attributed the source to a "British banking official", however it had been MI6 officials, who had been supplying Coughlin with material for years.

The allegations against Coughlin were confirmed when the Sunday Telegraph was served with a libel writ by Saif Qaddafi. The paper was unable to back up its allegations but pleaded, that it had been supplied with the material by a government security agency. In October 28 1998 a statement made by the paper described how, under Charles Moore's editorship, a lunch had been arranged with the then Conservative Foreign Secretary, Malcolm Rifkind, at which Coughlin had been present. Told by Rifkind that countries such as Iran were trying to get hold of hard currency to beat sanctions, Coughlin was later briefed by an MI6 man - his regular contact. Some weeks later, he was introduced to a second MI6 man, who spent several hours with him and handed over extensive details of the story about Saif Qaddafi. Although Coughlin asked for evidence, and was shown purported bank statements, the pleadings make clear that he was dependent on MI6 for the discreditable details about the alleged counterfeiting scam.

Throughout the formal pleadings, the Telegraph preserved the full identity of its sources by referring to a "Western government security agency". But this was exposed by solicitor David Hooper in his book on libel Reputations Under Fire, in which he says: "In reality [they were] members of MI6". In 2002 Geoffrey Robertson QC made a statement on behalf of the Telegraph Group stating "there was no truth in the allegation that Saif Qaddafi participated in any currency sting".

Habbush letter

Main articles: Mohamed Atta's alleged Prague connection and Habbush letter

In late 2003, in a front-page exclusive story, Coughlin revealed a leaked intelligence memorandum, purportedly uncovered by Iraq's interim government, which detailed a meeting between Mohammed Atta, one of the September 11 hijackers, and Iraqi intelligence at the time of Saddam Hussein. The memo was supposedly written by Iraqi security chief General Tahir Jalil Habbush al-Tikriti to the president of Iraq. The report was subsequently challenged with American officials also reiterating that there was no such link.

The Daily Telegraph's exclusive report was picked up and repeated by several conservative columnists in the United States, including syndicated columnist Deroy Murdock and William Safire.

Iran

Coughlin has a been criticized for writing various allegations against Iran, using unknown and untraceable sources, many of which have turned out to be false. Coughlin has alleged that Iran is producing nerve gas and chemical weapons.

In a report published by the Campaign Against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran the sources of 44 articles written by Coughlin about Iran between 29/10/2005 and 10/10/2006 were studied and following conclusions were made:

• Sources were unnamed or untraceable, often senior Western intelligence officials or senior Foreign Office officials.
• Articles were published at sensitive and delicate times where there had been relatively positive diplomatic moves towards Iran.
• Articles contained exclusive revelations about Iran combined with eye-catchingly controversial headlines.
• The story upon which the headline was based does not usually exceed one line or at the most one paragraph. The rest of the article focused on other, often unrelated, information.

Views on the potential benefits of torture

In April 2009, Coughlin wrote an article entitled "My advice to Obama: Don't pick a fight with Dick Cheney", which was published on the Daily Telegraph's website. In the article, which followed revelations that US forces had waterboarded an Al Qaeda suspect 183 times, Coughlin argued that "There are always two sides to a story", before asking "what if, as Mr Cheney is now suggesting, these brutal interrogation methods actually produced information that saved lives by thwarting potential al-Qaeda attacks?". Coughlin suggested that the problem posed "an interesting ethical dilemma", namely "Are interrogation methods like waterboarding justified if they save lives, or should we respect the detainees' human rights, thereby enabling the terror attacks to take place and claim innocent lives? I know which option I'd go for." Coughlin has persisted in writing articles supporting the use of torture, for example on 10 February 2010 "When the next bomb goes off in London, blame the judges".