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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

Die österreichische Internetseite «Wochenblick» stellt unter dem Titel «Deutsche Justiz außer Rand und Band» eine jahrealte Tat als aktuellen Kriminalfall dar. Auch die Seite «Journalistenwatch» behauptet, schon wieder sei ein «Messerstecher» für «unschuldig» befunden worden. Beide Texte verbreiten, ein gebürtiger Iraner habe «vor einem Jahr» eine junge Studentin erstochen. Der Prozess solle 2020 beginnen.

Publisher’s rating: Der Fall ist Jahre her, der Beschuldigte ist als Täter längst verurteilt worden.

FACTLYCrime & justice

Telangana Traffic Police breaking the helmets of motorcyclists.

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim attached to the video was that Telangana Traffic Police were breaking motorcyclists’ helmets. FACTLY’s investigation identifies the officers and location differently: it says the footage shows Hassan City Traffic Police in Karnataka breaking half-helmets worn by motorcyclists during what the review calls their “Half-Helmets Operation.” The review describes several checks on the video. It says the language audible in the footage was not Telugu, and that some commenters identified the incident as related to Karnataka. The investigators also fragmented the video with the InVid plugin, searched its resulting keyframes using Google reverse image search and the Kannada phrase for “Police helmet,” and found a matching keyframe in a Public TV article about Hassan traffic police breaking half-helmets. FACTLY says a video from a YouTube news channel also corroborated that the incident took place in Hassan. It further reports finding a Cyberabad Traffic Police tweet clarifying that the video was not from Hyderabad and warning against wearing half-helmets because they do not adequately protect the head. Together, the identification of Hassan in the image-search result and the cited video corroboration support the review’s conclusion that the footage was not of Telangana Traffic Police.

NewtralCrime & justice

El que debería estar en la cárcel es Jordi Pujol, por corrupto, y no Jordi Sánchez [sic] y Jordi Cuixart por ser independentistas. Pero ya sabemos que si Pujol habla, cae el PP, medio PSOE y la Casa Real ¿Estado de Derecho? ¿Justicia independiente?

Publisher’s rating: Falso

Newtral investigated whether Julio Anguita had said that Jordi Pujol, rather than Jordi Sànchez and Jordi Cuixart, should be imprisoned, adding that Pujol’s speaking out would bring down political parties and the royal household. The article describes the statement as having circulated widely on Facebook and says the post attributed it to Anguita, formerly secretary-general of the Communist Party of Spain and United Left. To check the attribution, Newtral says it searched for an interview, article or public statement in which Anguita made the remark and found none. It also contacted the Communist Party of Spain. According to Newtral, the party’s communications department said the phrase came from a Facebook page of Anguita followers. That evidence addresses who originated or published the wording; it does not establish that Anguita himself said it. The article therefore concludes that the attribution is unsupported.

FACTLYCrime & justice

A girl found missing at the Hyderabad railway station.

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim concerned a social-media post asking people to share an image of a girl said to have been found missing at Hyderabad railway station, so she could be reunited with her parents. FACTLY’s review identifies the girl as Avani and reports that the image instead relates to a 2016 incident at Nagpur railway station. [S1]

Deutsche Presse-AgenturCrime & justice

Behörden, die die wahren Umstände einer Straftat verschleiern? Mit Blick auf einen vermeintlichen Messerangriff am Hamburger Landgericht versucht die Webseite «Deutschlandstimme», diesen Eindruck zu erwecken. Der Artikel spricht von Zeugenhinweisen auf «südländisch» aussehende Verdächtige und streut Gerüchte über die mögliche Verwicklung von arabischen Familienclans

Publisher’s rating: Zeugen, die den angeblichen Messerangriff gesehen haben, sind den Ermittlern nicht bekannt. Auch die Gerüchte über Clankriminalität haben sich bisher nicht bestätigt.

The claim concerns a Deutschlandstimme article that presented the injury of a former lawyer at Hamburg Regional Court as a possible knife attack, invoking supposed witnesses and rumors about the lawyer’s clients and Arab family clans. The dpa fact-check examined the incident reported on 29 October 2019 and the evidence for those assertions. It says police initially reported that an injured man had been taken to hospital from the court building at Sievekingplatz and began a large-scale search because investigators initially suspected a fleeing assailant. The investigation’s account then changed: investigators came to suspect that the man might have lightly injured himself to avoid his court hearing. A police update that afternoon said, according to the review, that initial findings suggested he may have inflicted the injuries himself. The review also reports that an investigator told Bild there was no perpetrator lead from witnesses, and a police spokesperson told Stern that the search for a perpetrator had ended. It says witnesses had apparently seen the man injure himself; on that basis, the court rejected his appeal that same day. The review identifies the injured man as a former lawyer sentenced to three years and nine months for embezzling money from SOS Children’s Villages and clients. He had appealed, and proceedings were due to begin on 29 October. The article’s suggestion that a self-inflicted back wound might look different if the lawyer had clients in Arab clans was presented as a rumor, without identifying its source or establishing its truth. The dpa account says that, as of 13 November, there was neither a medical report confirming a knife attack nor eyewitness evidence of one, according to a court spokesperson.

Pesa CheckCrime & justice

JKUAT student brutally assaulted

Publisher’s rating: TRUE

Research from related reporting links the claim to former Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology student Allan Omondi. It reports that a High Court found police brutally assaulted and unlawfully detained him in 2019 during student unrest. This matches the claim’s central assertion that a JKUAT student was brutally assaulted. The excerpts do not identify the video or provide the original fact-check’s investigation, so they do not establish details beyond the court-related reporting described here. The reporting says Omondi alleged that uniformed officers beat and kicked him on November 11, 2019, and that the conduct was captured on video and circulated through local and international media. A later High Court ruling, delivered July 3, 2026, found violations of his rights and awarded him Ksh8 million. These are findings and details reported in the supplied excerpts, not a description of checks performed by Pesa Check.

Deutsche Presse-AgenturCrime & justice

Bei einer Auseinandersetzung zweier Gruppen im nordrhein-westfälischen Moers stirbt am 9. November 2019 ein junger Mann. Vier Tatverdächtige kommen in Untersuchungshaft. Die Internetseite «truth24.net» behauptet nun, es handle sich bei den Männern um Ausländer. Angeblich «vertusche» die Polizei, dass es sich um einen Streit zwischen «Migrantengruppen» gehandelt habe

Publisher’s rating: Nach Polizeiangaben sind alle vier Tatverdächtigen Deutsche.

The claim concerns the fatal confrontation between two groups in Moers, North Rhine-Westphalia, on 9 November 2019. Truth24.net alleged that the suspects were foreigners and that police were concealing a conflict between migrant groups. The dpa review reports that the incident left a 23-year-old man dead and at least two people injured, and that several suspects were arrested that evening. The review says police later told dpa that all four suspects were German citizens and were aged 19 to 27. This directly contradicts the claim about the suspects’ nationality; the source does not establish the groups’ relationship or the cause of the conflict. [S1: “In Moers nahe Duisburg hat am 9. November 2019 ein blutiger Streit zwischen zwei Personengruppen einen Toten und mindestens zwei Verletzte gefordert.”; “Tags darauf teilte die Polizei der Deutschen Presse-Agentur mit, dass alle vier Deutsche seien. Sie sind im Alter zwischen 19 und 27 Jahren.”; “In welcher Beziehung die Gruppen zueinander standen und worum es bei dem Konflikt ging, sei Gegenstand der Ermittlungen, sagte ein Polizeisprecher.] The review describes the video linked by truth24.net as its only evidence: it shows alleged witnesses talking, one of whom says, “They are all foreigners.” The review says this assertion did not match the information police gave dpa. It also distinguishes the unsupported nationality allegation from questions that remained under investigation, including the groups’ relationship and what prompted the confrontation. [S1: “Als einziger Beweis wird ein Youtube-Video verlinkt, auf dem sich angebliche Zeuginnen miteinander unterhalten. Dabei fällt der Satz: «Das sind alles Ausländer.»”; “Das aber stimmt nach Angaben der Polizei nicht.”; “In welcher Beziehung die Gruppen zueinander standen und worum es bei dem Konflikt ging, sei Gegenstand der Ermittlungen, sagte ein Polizeisprecher.”]