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PeakMetrics / Fact Checks

Crime & justice fact checks

Explore claims publishers have checked about crime & justice. Read their original ratings and follow the evidence.

6,836 published reviews in this topic

FACTLYCrime & justice

Visuals of a child tied up and left on the roof of a house to die

Publisher’s rating: MISLEADING

The review addresses a social-media post accompanying footage of a girl tied up and lying on a house roof. The post asked people to share the video to help identify and rescue the child. The review’s central finding is that the footage was authentic but was not recent: it showed a 2022 incident in Delhi, and the child’s family and circumstances had already been identified by police when the video circulated earlier. To establish the incident’s timing and circumstances, FACTLY says it found news reports from June 2022 through an internet keyword search. It reports that the child’s mother tied her up as punishment for not completing her homework and left her alone on the roof. The excerpt does not name the child or provide details of the news reports, so those cannot be independently assessed from the supplied text. The review also quotes a Delhi Police statement from 2022 saying that, after the video surfaced on social media, police worked to establish the child’s identity and circumstances, identified her family, and initiated appropriate action. The review therefore distinguishes the real footage from the misleading impression that it showed a current, unresolved case requiring users to identify and rescue the child.

FACTLYCrime & justice

Document mentioning certain bizarre conditions under which Pakistan’s former PM Imran Khan was arrested.

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The review examines a social-media image of an alleged arrest agreement printed on PTI letterhead. The document purportedly set out conditions for Imran Khan’s treatment, including that he would not be stripped or raped and would not be tortured with penetrating objects. The claim under review was that this document reflected conditions connected to Khan’s arrest; the review concludes that the document was fabricated and that no such agreement had been signed. To investigate, the review reports searching for relevant information and finding a Geo News tweet that identified the document as fake. It also checked the document’s apparent signatories and date against other records. The review says the letter appeared to have been jointly issued by Khan, then-U.S. Ambassador Donald Blome, and Interior Secretary Yousaf Naseem Khokhar. But the letter was dated May 8, while the Geo News tweet said Khokhar had retired on March 7; the review says news reports confirmed his retirement on March 7, 2023. The review also compared the spelling and signature attributed to Khokhar on the viral letter with his signature on an official document from Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency, and reported a mismatch. These checks support the review’s conclusion that the viral document was not genuine. The supplied excerpt does not reproduce the letter, the official document, the Geo News tweet, or the cited retirement reports, so their contents and the signature comparison cannot be independently inspected from this evidence alone.

dpaCrime & justice

Christine Lagarde ist wegen Begünstigung vorbestraft.

Publisher’s rating: Die Behauptung ist falsch. Lagarde ist nicht wegen Begünstigung vorbestraft. Sie wurde wegen eines anderen Delikts für schuldig befunden. Nach diesem Richterspruch gilt sie gemäß französischem Recht als nicht vorbestraft.

The claim appeared in a video by Ernst Wolff shared in a Facebook post in Luxembourg. Wolff alleged that Christine Lagarde, while France’s finance minister, had ensured that businessman Bernard Tapie escaped punishment and was then convicted of favoritism. The review distinguishes those allegations from the legal findings in Lagarde’s case: she was found guilty of negligence in handling public funds, not favoritism. The review says the Court of Justice of the Republic found Lagarde guilty on 19 December 2016 under Article 432-16 of the French Criminal Code, concerning negligence by a public official. It contrasts that provision with Article 432-14, which defines the separate offense of favoritism. The review also reports that the court did not impose a penalty and expressly decided there would be no entry in the criminal record. It explains that, under French law, a person without such an entry is considered not to have a criminal record. The case concerned a €405 million arbitration award to Tapie, including €45 million for non-material harm, in a dispute following the sale of his Adidas shares. The review says Lagarde was accused of failing to appeal the arbitration decision, which could have protected public funds. It also states that the review could not substantiate Wolff’s claim that she had ensured Tapie went unpunished. Thus, the allegation conflates Lagarde’s negligence conviction with a different offense and overlooks the court’s decisions on penalty and criminal-record registration.

Fact Crescendo Sri LankaCrime & justice

කළුතර සිසුවියගේ මරණයේ සැකකරු, අරගලයේ ප්‍රධාන චරිතයක් බවට හුවමාරු වන ඡායාරූපවල ඇත්ත කතාව!

Publisher’s rating: False

The claim says that photos shared as showing the main suspect in the Kalutara schoolgirl’s death depict him as a prominent figure in the protest movement. The review examined the circulated images and concluded that the people shown were not the suspect, whom it identified as Dhanushka Gayan Sahabandu. It reports that one image was of Shalika Rukshan Senadhira, whom protest participants identified as an active member of the movement; the other showed Chamara Dilshan, who ran the chama YouTube channel. Both men reportedly told the publisher by phone that images of them had been circulated misleadingly or as a joke, and that people had taken the posts as genuine. The review says neither man was in custody. To identify the people in the images, the publisher says it consulted people active in the protest movement, checked Senadhira’s Facebook account, and contacted both men. It reports that the image of Senadhira had appeared in a Facebook album he posted on June 27, 2022, and was reused in the misleading posts. The review also reports that mainstream media had identified Sahabandu as the actual suspect. These checks distinguish the photographed individuals from the person named in the claim; resemblance alone did not establish that either was the suspect. The review also qualifies what was known about the suspect’s connection to the protest movement. It reports that the police spokesperson said the investigation had not established whether the suspect had participated in the movement, and that police had not investigated his political affiliation because it was not relevant to the case. People active in the Kalutara protest movement told the publisher they did not recognize him as an organizer. Thus, the photos did not establish that the suspect was a protest figure, and the review says the images were of other people.