US radio host drops case against Muslim group

Conservative radio talk show host Michael Savage dropped his lawsuit against an Islamic rights group that launched an advertisers' boycott after he attacked Islam and the Quran on the air, according to press reports.

Last month, Savage filed a copyright and racketeering suit against the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). The case was thrown out by a San Francisco federal judge due to grave legal errors, but the court granted him a chance to re-file the suit by Thursday.

In an unexpected move, Savage’s attorney, Daniel Horowitz, who had earlier vowed to take the case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, said Savage had decided not to pursue the case.

CAIR, a Muslim advocacy group based in Washington, D.C., had posted four minutes of excerpts from the radio show on its website and called for an advertiser boycott. The group says Savage has since lost $1 million in advertising.

On Thursday, Horowitz told the San Francisco Chronicle he feared his client would be in danger if he continued the case, and insisted that the radio shock jock could prove the Islamic organization engaged in a conspiracy that harmed him financially.

In a statement reacting to Savage's decision to drop the lawsuit, CAIR stated: "It is obvious that Mr. Savage finally came to realize that his bizarre and frivolous smears would not stand up in a court of law. It is a pity that he does not show as much common sense while spewing invective daily against religious, ethnic and even medical minorities on his 'hate radio' program."

Savage, who has about 8 million listeners a week on 400 stations for his syndicated "Savage Nation" talk-radio program, said in a broadcast last Oct. 29 that Muslims were "screaming for the blood of Christians or Jews or anyone they hate." He called the Quran a "hateful little book" and a "document of slavery."