Wrote: Endrit Berisha
Through a post on X (formerly Twitter), an official from the Serbian Ministry of Sports has claimed to arrest Albanians at Euro 2024 for attacking Serbian fans and vandalism.
Urosh Pribicevic, who is listed on the website of the Serbian Ministry of Sports as the head of the Department for International Cooperation and European Integration, posted a photo on Sunday showing 15 people whom he alluded to as having been arrested for violence against Serbian fans at the European Championship currently taking place in Germany.
What did the Serbian official post?
"England fans arrested for attacking Serbia fans and vandalism. 'English' fans," Pribicevic wrote on Twitter on June 16.
In the published photograph, there are 15 people with names and surnames in Albanian.
What is the truth?
After fact-checking by hibrid.info, it turns out that this photo was published in March 2023. "Leicestermercury.co.uk” on March 1 of that year had reported on “the faces of the gang who made more than £2 million selling cocaine from bases in Leicester city centre”. The report concerned the sentence of almost 90 years in prison of a group of 16 people.
The nw X (ex-Twitter) post tag from the account "Uroš Pribićević":
https://ghostarchive.org/archive/9trG5
The news of the arrest of this gang was also reported in the Albanian language media on March 3, 2023. (see here)
On Sunday, before the England-Serbia football match, there was a physical fight between fans of the two countries. There were reports of Albanians being involved in the fight, but no arrests. (see here)
Analyze:
Serbian Ministry of Sports official Uros Pribicevic, through a post on Twitter, claimed the arrest of Albanians among English fans for attacking Serbian fans at the "Euro 2024" European Championship.
For this claim, he used a photo with several people's names and surnames in Albanian. After verification, it turns out that the photo he used is old and published in the March 2023 report on the gang's sentence to about 90 years in prison for cocaine.
Based on its work methodology, hibrid.info assesses this content as "Disinformation".
Reasoning:
"Disinformation" is defined as information content that contains a "mix" of inaccurate sources or even half-truthful attributes, and that is created and/or distributed with the deliberate intention of causing harm. The motive behind the producers/distributors of disinformation content lies in achieving a political, financial, psychological or social goal.