Fox News reporter denies duping London mosque

LONDON, Aug 15 (Reuters) A Fox News reporter, responding to accusations he misrepresented himself as a Vatican offical to an east London mosque used by suspects in a foiled plot to blow up planes, said he had identified himself clearly.

Mohammed Shoyaib, imam of the Masjid-e-Umer mosque in althamstow, yesterday told Britain's Guardian newspaper that Father Jonathan Morris, a Fox News religion reporter, introduced himself as a Rome-based priest working for peace in the world.

''Only later he said he was from 'a sister network of Sky News' but never mentioned Fox,'' the imam said, according to the newspaper. ''We would never have spoken to him if we had known,'' Shoyaib said. ''We've been tricked.'' Officials at the mosque could not be reached for comment yesterday.

Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. owns Fox News, and also about 37 per cent of UK satellite operator BSkyB, which runs the Sky News channel.

A Fox News official declined to comment, referring reporters to a blog posted by Morris on the Fox News Web site yesterday.

''From the beginning, I told them clearly that I was working with an American television network, and later I did tell them that I was with Fox News, an American sister network of Sky News in England,'' Morris wrote in the blog.

''We talked at length. They were cordial, forthcoming and all this as they let the camera roll. Other news media jumped in and tried to cause a stink, but that's how it is in the news world.

Some people are willing to break up something very good, just to get a story,'' Morris wrote.

Walthamstow was one of the main focuses of last week's operation in which British police arrested 24 people on suspicion of planning to blow up airliners bound for the United States with liquid explosives disguised as drinks.

REUTERS MS RK0840