Conservative commentator Glenn Beck is being sued for defamation after calling a Saudi Arabian student "the money man" behind the deadly Boston Marathon bombings.
Abdulrahman Alharbi, 20, who was injured while watching the race, was questioned by police at the time, but was eventually cleared of any responsibility for the terrorist blasts carried out last year by the Tsarnaev brothers.
But Beck had already made a point of singling out Alharbi, who was on a full scholarship at the New England School of English, as being the third person involved in the explosions that killed three people and injured hundreds.
According to
The Washington Post, the radio host told his listeners, "We know who this Saudi national is. We know who this man is and, listen to me carefully, we know he is a very bad, bad, bad man.
"While the media continues to look at what the causes were … there are, at this hour, three people involved."
Beck said the U.S. government had "tagged" Alharbi as a "proven terrorist." And he also called Alharbi an al-Qaida "control agent" behind the attacks.
"You know who the Saudi is?" Beck said. "He’s the money man. He’s the guy who paid for it."
Even when a co-host questioned him about whether his report was speculation, he added, "He’s the money man."
Alharbi has filed a defamation suit against Beck in U.S. District Court in Boston seeking unspecified punitive damages.
The suits says: "Beck falsely identified Mr. Alharbi as an active participant, 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."
Alharbi, who has recovered from his leg wounds, revealed in an interview with
The Islamic Monthly last year that the false accusations had left him a scarred man.
"All the police officers and the FBI … and all the nurses, and all the doctors were staring at me," he said. "I was looking [at] them like, is it because of the color of my skin, or is it because of the name of my country?"
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