Saudi National and Former ‘Person of Interest’ Allegedly Speaks: Officials ‘Apologized’ to Me and Promised Me ‘Special Health Care’
A photo allegedly of Alharbi included in the Okaz.com report.
The Saudi National who Blaze sources
say at one point was going to be deported, allegedly spoke to a
well-known Saudi news outlet explaining his situation and how events
unfolded after the Boston bombings.
According to him, officials apologized
“profusely” and even promised him “special health care.” Hospital and
“security officials” also provided him with an international phone to
call his family in Saudi Arabia after he lost his during the bombing and
he was in contact with the Saudi Consul-General.
The information comes from Okaz.com
and says it includes the account of Abdul Rahman Ali Issa Al-Salimi
Al-Harbi, or Alharbi. Steven Miller, a research associate with the
Foundation for the Defense of Democracies translated the article for
TheBlaze.
“I was in a state of panic and fear, so
I did not think of anything except trying to picture what happened to
me, until I realized, hours after I entered the hospital, that my mobile
phone fell from me during the explosion…,” the outlet quotes him as
saying, describing the scene immediately after the bombing.
“I spent a day and a half without
contact with my family in Saudi Arabia or any of my colleagues, until
hospital management and security officials provided me a phone to
communicate with my colleagues. But I couldn’t remember any number, as I
lost my mobile phone at the site of the marathon. I asked to contact my
father in the Kingdom, so they provided me a phone with international
service, and I had my first contact with my family.”
The outlet then explains that “Al-Harbi
confirmed that his first communication after the bombing with [anyone]
outside of his family was with the Saudi Consul-General in New York,
Azzam bin Abdulkarim al-Qin,” who provided Alharbi with a list, compiled
by local American officials, of Saudis injured in the explosion.
“Regarding allegations of his detention
in a confined room at the hospital because he was a suspect, Alharbi
denied that,”the report says, quoting him as saying, “‘Quite the
contrary. In fact, officials apologized to me profusely about what
happened, and they assured me that I would receive special health care,
and expressed their willingness to meet my needs.’”
Alharbi’s apartment was searched the
night of the bombing, with images of authorities hauling out articles
being plastered on the news.
“Regarding his interrogation,” the
article goes on to say, “he clarified that security officials asked him
to focus on what he saw before the bombings, and on the nature of the
event [to see] if he remembers what happened around him…he thanked
American authorities who refuted media allegations about his status as a
suspect…”
Immigrations and Customs Enforcement
officials have denied the claims made by a Blaze source that the
government was considering deporting Alharbi despite questions of his
involvement immediately after the bombings.
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