Dec 16, Kathmandu - US President Donald Trump has filed a lawsuit against the British broadcast channel BBC, seeking at least $10 billion in damages, alleging that a speech he gave to his supporters before the riots at the US Capitol in 2021 was edited and presented misleadingly.

The lawsuit, filed Monday in federal court in Miami, Florida, accuses the BBC of alleged defamation and violations of the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act. The lawsuit seeks damages of no less than $5 billion each under two separate counts, with the total claim totalling at least $10 billion.

President Trump, 89, spoke to reporters on Monday, claiming that the BBC had "put words in my mouth." He also expressed suspicion that “AI or some similar technology” may have been used to edit the documentary, and said the process of filing a lawsuit was in its final stages.

The documentary was broadcast on the BBC's flagship current affairs programme Panorama ahead of the 2024 presidential election. The video appears to splice together two different parts of President Trump's speech from January 6, 2021, in an attempt to make it appear as if he was directly urging his supporters to storm the Capitol. On the same day, US lawmakers were certifying Joe Biden's 2020 election victory.

A spokesman for President Trump's legal team said in a statement to AFP that "the once-respected and now-disgraced BBC has deliberately, maliciously and deceptively manipulated President Trump's speech to discredit him in a brazen attempt to interfere in the 2024 presidential election." The statement also claimed that the BBC has a long-standing pattern of deceiving its viewers, all in the service of its own left-wing political agenda.

The British Broadcasting Corporation, which has a wide audience outside the UK, has been in turmoil recently. A major controversy erupted within the organization last month after a media report refocused attention on the edited clip. The scandal led to the resignation of the BBC's director general and the organization's top news executive.

The documentary describes the edited speech in President Trump’s lawsuit as “material fabricated and broadcast by the defendants with the brazen intent to damage President Trump, interfere with and influence the outcome of the 2024 presidential election, just a week before the election.”

The BBC has denied the defamation claim brought by President Trump. However, BBC Chairman Samir Shah has confirmed that he has sent a letter of apology to President Trump. Shah also testified before a UK parliamentary committee last month, citing an internal memo leaked to the Daily Telegraph newspaper that the broadcaster needed to quickly acknowledge its mistakes and take corrective action.

The lawsuit against the BBC is the latest in a series of lawsuits that President Trump has filed against various media companies in recent years. Many of the cases have been settled in multi-million dollar settlements.