Barack Obama should be grateful for Britain’s restrictive free speech laws, according to London’s most fearless magazine, Private Eye. The Eye, which often covers stories other magazines won’t touch, claims that aggressive libel lawyers in Britain have censored web reports on Nadhmi Auchi, the mysterious London-based Iraqi billionaire who has been linked to Obama.

In February, the American press picked up on the possible Obama-Auchi connection. The key–and widely known–allegation is that there is a cash trial between and Auchi and Obama, via the notorious slum landlord Tony Rezko. It is understood that Auchi wired $3.5 million to Rezko, who in turn gave $625, 000 to the Obamas so they could buy a mock Georgian house on Chicago’s south side.

There is of course no evidence that Obama did anything wrong or illegal. Still, the candidate’s association with Rezko, who is still on trail for 16 counts of corruption, and Auchi, who was given a 15-month suspended sentence for his part in the French Elf Scandal, could have severely damaged his campaign. As it was, the story lost its legs, in part because–in the words of Private Eye–Auchi’s lawyers had “scrubbed the web of newspaper reports which displeased their master”.

For example, the Observer, fearing a libel suit, pulled down a series of articles on Auchi printed in 2003, which some U.S. bloggers had started to notice. The reports described how the arms and oil tycoon, who left Iraq in 1979, had kept close enough ties with Saddam’s regime to help with the sale of Italian Frigates to the Iraqi Defense Ministry. One report noted how Auchi collected politicians “the way other men collect stamps” .

The Eye report concludes,

Barack Obama is a lucky politician. If American journalists had led the way in investigating his shady connections, the U.S first amendment would have protected their work. As it was, the British press took the lead–and libel lawyers can censor it [sic] without anyone noticing.

Murky stuff.