Muslim radio host sues Daily Stormer for claim he 'masterminded' Manchester bombing

A Muslim-American radio host has sued the publisher of the Daily Stormer, saying it defamed him by falsely labelling him the “mastermind” of the Ariana Grande concert bombing in the UK.

کد خبر: ۷۲۲۳۶۳

تاریخ: ۲۶ مرداد ۱۳۹۶ - ۰۹:۵۷

A Muslim-American radio host has sued the publisher of the Daily Stormer, saying it defamed him by falsely labelling him the "mastermind” of the Ariana Grande concert bombing in the UK.

Dean Obeidallah said the neo-Nazi site embedded fabricated messages in a story on 1 June to make it seem like they were sent from his Twitter account, tricking readers into believing he took responsibility for the terrorist attack of 22 May in Manchester.

Obeidallah, a comedian and Daily Beast columnist, told the Associated Press he received death threats after the article was published. "It was literally jaw-dropping,” he said. "The death threats were something I’ve never seen before in my life.”

One comment on the post said Obeidallah "just earned himself a spot at the gallows”, according to his federal lawsuit, which was filed on Wednesday against the publisher, Andrew Anglin.

Obeidallah’s lawsuit claims Anglin libelled him, invaded his privacy and intentionally inflicted "emotional distress”. It seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.

It comes two days after Google and GoDaddy pulled the site’s web address, in effect making it unreachable. The companies acted after Anglin’s publication of a post mocking the 32-year-old woman killed in a deadly attack at a white nationalist rally in Virginia.

The suit claimed the article’s defamatory statements were intended to incite violence against Obeidallah, citing other alleged examples of Daily Stormer readers who did just that, including Dylann Roof, who read the site before killing black churchgoers in South Carolina.

The suit comes at a tumultuous time for the Daily Stormer, which already faced a federal lawsuit by another target of one of its online trolling campaigns.

In April, a Montana woman sued Anglin for orchestrating an antisemitic trolling campaign against her family. Tanya Gersh’s suit claims anonymous internet trolls bombarded Gersh’s family with hateful and threatening messages after Anglin published their personal information and accused her and other Jewish residents of Whitefish, Montana, of engaging in an "extortion racket” against the mother of prominent white nationalist Richard Spencer.

Gersh is represented by attorneys from the Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups. In July, the law center’s lawyers claimed Anglin was "actively concealing his whereabouts” and hadn’t been served with Gersh’s suit. They said they looked for him at four addresses in Franklin County, Ohio, where he apparently has connections.

Anglin – who is from Ohio and uses a post office box in Worthington, Ohio – didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment on Wednesday on Obeidallah’s suit, which was filed in Columbus.

A lawyer for Obeidallah said the Daily Stormer had not responded to their request to remove the 1 June article about him. Obeidallah is represented by Muslim Advocates, a national legal and educational organisation based in Oakland, California.

The Daily Stormer published its post about Obeidallah a day after the Daily Beast published his column entitled, "Will Donald Trump ever say the words ‘white supremacist terrorism’?”

"Their goal was clearly to marginalize my voice,” said Obeidallah, 47, a resident of New York City.

Anglin’s site takes its name from Der Stürmer, a newspaper that published Nazi propaganda. The site includes sections called "Jewish problem” and "Race war”.