Father of US Muslim teen arrested for school project sues for defamation

The father of Ahmed Mohamed, the Muslim teenager arrested in Texas last year for bringing a homemade clock to school, has launched a defamation lawsuit against several conservative media figures and organisations.

Mohamed Elhassan Mohamed filed the suit last week in Dallas County on behalf of his son, whose detention and questioning last September made international headlines amid accusations of Islamophobia. The boy was suspended from school for three days, though police decided not to press charges.

According to the Guardian, the eight defendants listed in the lawsuit comprise the political commentator Glenn Beck, the Blaze, Fox Television Stations, and Irving mayor Beth Van Duyne.

The suit claims that the broadcasts in question wrongly floated the idea that the boy deliberately brought a “hoax bomb” to school as a publicity stunt, when the claimed he had simply tried to build an alarm clock for a school project.

The suit seeks damages if retractions and corrections are not forthcoming. It claims: “The public has been misled into believing that the Mohameds are terrorists who plotted to have the Irving police wrongfully arrest a teenage boy for bringing an alarm clock to school.”