Political commentator Glenn Beck is being sued for defaming a Saudi Arabian man injured during the Boston Marathon bombings last April 2013.
The bombing, which took the lives of three people and injured more than 200 event-goers, was said to be the doing of two brothers from Russia.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, was detained, charged with 30 federal charges, and currently awaits trial in November. If convicted he may face the death penalty.
His accomplice and older brother, 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev, died in a shootout with police officers four days following the bombings.
Yet, Beck claimed at the time that there was a third perpetrator who was “the money man” behind the attack.
Twenty-year-old Abdulrahman Alharbi-a college student in the Boston area-was attending the event near the marathon’s finish line when the bombs were detonated.
FBI investigators later interrogated Alharbi and searched his home, but officials determined that he had nothing to do with the attack.
However, Alharbi came under further persecution and this time the accusations were done publicly.
Alharbi accuses Beck for intentionally causing harm to his reputation during a live segment on TheBlaze TV.
On April 22, just seven days following the Boston Marathon bombings, Beck asserted that the whole attack was a cover-up and that Alharbi was involved.
View the segment here:
“The government has not come clean nor has really any of the mainstream media,” he said. “The government is out and out lying to you. They are engaging in a disinformation campaign to discredit and destroy.”
According to the defamation lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court Friday, Beck “repeatedly and falsely identified Mr. Alharbi as an active participant in the crimes that were committed on April 15, 2013, repeatedly questioned the motives of federal officials in failing to pursue or detain Alharbi and repeatedly and falsely accused Mr. Alharbi of being a criminal who had funded the attacks at the Boston Marathon.”
Alharbi also states that Beck identified him as a murderer, terrorist, and the brains behind the bombings.
The lawsuit will seek unspecified damages and lawyer fees from Beck and his network.
Beck’s reps have yet to respond to the lawsuit.
Image via YouTube
