U.N. Official Keeps Job After Blaming U.S., Israel For Boston Marathon Bombing

U.N. Human Rights Council Palestinian Monitor Richard Falk is keeping his job after comments in which he blamed the Boston Marathon bombing on the U.S. and Israel.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon has made it clear he does not agree with Falk’s statements, yet the U.N. has no plan to terminate him.

According to U.N. spokesman Marty Nersiky: 

Professor Falk is appointed by member states of the Human Right Council in Geneva and not by the Secretary General. So it is within the domain of the Human Rights Council and member states to determine the appointment and work of special rapporteurs. It is up to them to decide.

Falk is an 82-year-old professor emeritus at Princeton University. In 1979 he described the Ayatollah Khomeini as a moderate, and in 2004 he suggested the U.S. was behind the 9/11 attacks. More recently, he wrote that the Boston Marathon bombing was due to U.S. attempts at global domination and the supposed Israeli-influence on American foreign policy.

Nevertheless, Falk will keep his U.N. job “until his mandate expires in mid-2014.”