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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.

6,854 published reviews in this topic

Deutsche Presse-AgenturCrime & justice

Nach einem Polizeieinsatz in Berlin wird im Netz der Anschein erweckt, in einem Flüchtlingsheim sei eine schwere Waffe und Munition gefunden worden. Die Besitzer seien «wieder auf freiem Fuß». Bebildert werden die Artikel etwa mit einem Sturmgewehr.

Publisher’s rating: Der Polizeieinsatz war in einem Heim für Wohnungslose. Gefunden wurde eine sogenannte Softairwaffe, mit der Plastikkugeln verschossen werden.

The review examined online articles about a police operation in Berlin that portrayed the location as a refugee shelter and suggested that a serious firearm and ammunition had been found. The incident occurred on November 20, 2019, at a facility in the Marzahn-Hellersdorf district. The review says two men were seen posing with a weapon through a window; police then entered their room under a judicial search warrant and checked the men, aged 27 and 29. The building was in fact a facility providing assistance to homeless people, not a refugee accommodation. The weapon seized was a Softair gun, along with ammunition. A police spokesperson told dpa that the men were being investigated on suspicion of creating an apparent danger because the gun looked deceptively real. The spokesperson also said it lacked the required “F in a pentagon” mark, so it might not meet German approval requirements. The review describes Softair guns as firing plastic pellets, and explains that the marking requirement applies to specified energy levels above 0.5 joules and up to 7.5 joules. The review also checked the articles’ illustrative image against the case: it says the assault-rifle photograph had nothing to do with the incident, was several years old, and could be downloaded freely online. It notes that Berlin police initially described the site as a refugee shelter but had corrected that information before the misleading articles appeared. The review reports that those articles had still not been corrected several days later.

FACTLYCrime & justice

17 years old Sami Abu Dyak died in Israeli prison due to medical negligence after being incarcerated for 11 years.

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim combined two assertions: that the pictured boy was 17-year-old Sami Abu Dyak, and that he had died in an Israeli prison after 11 years of incarceration. FACTLY’s investigation found that the image showed American actor Ian Michael Nelson, not Abu Dyak. It reported that Nelson was an actor active in movies since 2011 and found no news reports about his death. The review distinguished the person in the image from a man named Sami Abu Dyak, who had died of cancer in an Israeli prison. It reported that Abu Dyak was 36, not 17. Thus, although a man with that name had died in prison, the image and age used in the post did not identify him accurately. For its image check, FACTLY says it used Google reverse image search and found the same photograph in Ian Nelson’s IMDb photo gallery. It also checked Nelson’s biography and Wikipedia page. The review separately cites a Middle East Eye article describing Abu Dyak as suffering from terminal cancer and being refused compassionate leave to see his family. These findings contradict the post’s identification of the pictured person and its claim about his age.

Fact Check NICrime & justice

Northern Ireland has the highest rate of femicide in Western Europe

Publisher’s rating: INACCURATE WITH CONSIDERATION. Northern Ireland has the second highest rate (0.53) of female intentional homicide victims by intimate partner, per 100,000 inhabitants, in Western Europe, as defined by WEOG (given the lack of definition of “Western Europe”) and the regions covered by the data published by Eurostat.