This video shows the funeral of a man in Chechnya in 2018
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on November 10, 2020 at 06:00
- 3 min read
- By AFP Indonesia
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The one-minute three-second footage was posted on Facebook here on November 3, 2020. It has been viewed more than 170,000 times.
The post's Indonesian-language caption translates to English as: “The body of a Chechen Muslim youth who beheaded Samuel Paty, the French who insulted the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ through his caricature, was brought back to Chechnya and buried there as a great mujahid. Takbir ... !!! ALLAHUAKBAR!!!"
Mujahid refers to a person who strives or fights in support of Islam.
“Takbir” refers to the Arabic phrase “Allahu Akbar”, which means God is the greatest.
French police shot dead Abdullakh Anzorov, an 18-year-old originally from Chechnya, after he killed teacher Samuel Paty in a Paris suburb on October 16, 2020. Paty had showed cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad to his students during a class on free speech before he was killed, AFP reported.
The footage has also been viewed more than 300,000 times since it was posted alongside a similar claim on Facebook here, here, here and here; and on Twitter here and here.
The footage also appeared beside similar claims in English here and here; in Malay here; in Urdu here, here and here; and in Arabic here.
The claim is false.
The watermark seen in the clip corresponds with this TikTok post uploaded on October 25, 2020, by user @ismailov63.
A reverse image search on Yandex and keyword searches on Google found a similar video posted by Russian online magazine Spectrum on Facebook here on August 5, 2018, more than two years before Paty was killed.
The Russian-language post translates to English as: “Video: Funeral of Budanov’s killer
“The funeral of Yusup Temirkhanov, who in 2011 was found guilty of murdering former colonel Yuri Budanov, has been held in Chechnya.
"Tens of thousands of people attended the funeral, including Chechnya’s leader Ramzan Kadyrov.”
Below is screenshot comparison between the footage in the misleading post (L) and the video on Spectrum’s Facebook page (R):
The building in the video matches a Google user's image of Geldagan Mosque in Geldagan, Chechnya, tagged at the building's location on Google Maps.
Moscow-based online news media the Caucasian Knot also published an article about the funeral here on August 5, 2018, headlined: “Yusup Termirkhanov buried in Chechnya.”
The report's first paragraph reads: “On August 4, the funeral of Yusup Temirkhanov, who died in the colony after being convicted for killing the serviceman Yuri Budanov, was attended by the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov. He declared Temirkhanov innocent of assassinating the officer.”
BBC Russia also published a report on Temirkhanov’s funeral on August 4, 2018.
AFP Fact Check also debunked the same misleading footage with a similar claim in Arabic here.
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