Three days after the Boston Marathon bombings in April, the New York Post ran a headline that read “Bad Men: Feds Seek Two Pictured at Boston Marathon,” with a picture of two men having a conversation at the finish line. It turns out that the men looked nothing like the actual suspects, whose photos were released later that day. The two men have since filed a libel suit against the tabloid in Boston.
The Boston Globe reports that Salaheddin Barhoum, 16, of Revere, and Yassine Zaimi, 24, of Malden, filed the lawsuit on Wednesday in Suffolk Superior Court. They are suing for libel, negligent infliction of emotional distress, and invasion of privacy and are seeking unspecified monetary damages.
“The front page would lead a reasonable reader to believe that plaintiffs had bombs in their bags, that they were involved in causing the Boston Marathon bombing,” the complaint reads. Since they were recognizable in the photo, the two friends dealt with “scorn, hatred, ridicule, or contempt in the minds of a considerable and respectable segment of the community” after the paper was published.
The two friends are U.S. citizens from Morocco. Zaimi befriended Barhoum and his family while they were tenants in the same building.
As The Washington Post notes, their photo ended up on the cover of the Post after photos of them carrying a duffle bag and backpack went viral and amateurs online began trying to connect them to the bombing. Just hours after the Post was published that day, the FBI had released photos of the two suspects, the brothers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
Zaimi and Barhoum were never considered suspects, although the police did question them. "The plaintiffs were not suspects and were not being sought by law enforcement," the complaint reads. "The Post had no basis whatsoever to suggest that they were, especially in light of a warning on Wednesday to the news media, by federal authorities, to exercise caution in reporting about this very matter. In fact, law enforcement authorities had then focused their investigation on two suspects who were not the plaintiffs."
While the Post was the target of media critics, editor Col Allan told the AP, “We did not identify them as suspects” and defended the paper’s headline.
In the immediate aftermath of the bombing, the Post wasn’t the only media outlet criticized for its reporting. Several outlets incorrectly reported an arrest two days after the bombing and the New York Daily News had published a doctored photo of the carnage. The Post was also hit for claiming that 12 people died in the bombings, but in reality, three people died.