Wrote: Etrit Rexhepi
A piece of content has been published claiming that Edi Rama, the Prime Minister of Albania, wrote on Facebook, expressing his great joy at the news of the release from The Hague of Hashim Thaçi and Kadri Veseli, former leaders of the KLA. The post further states that Kosovo is expecting them on December 20.
image which features Rama's Facebook post, was published yesterday (November 26) on TikTok by an account named "kadriveseliofficial_".
ÇIs there anything wrong with this publication? Hibrid.info has not found any announcement indicating that the former KLA leaders have been acquitted from the trial in The Hague and that Rama's account does not contain any posts as claimed in the publication discussed.
Hibrid.info has checked Albanian Prime Minister's Facebook page, where no publication similar to the one we see in the image above was found.
Which indicates that the content from this image may have been manipulated and presented as an imitation of publications from Rama's Facebook page.
Also, in the research of the website of the Specialist Chambers and the Specialist Prosecutor's Office of Kosovo, in the section named “News/Media”, from the announcements shared by this institution, no announcement has been found indicating that a final decision has been made in Thaçi's judicial process.
On this same website, in the link for the case "Thaci and the others" It can be seen that this case is still in the trial phase.
Likewise on the link for current process information, it can be seen that the process is continuing.
Other information indicates that in an interview For the news agency "ekonomiaonline.com", the spokesman for the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague, Michael Doyle, had said that the Prosecution is expected to call all its witnesses against the former KLA leaders who are being tried in The Hague, by April next year, also announcing the conclusion of this trial next year.
Hibrid.info has handled and evaluated several similar posts this week (see here, here here and here).
Analyze:
The claim that Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama wrote on Facebook about the release of Thaçi and Veseli from The Hague was presented with a manipulated photo.
Also, the claim that former KLA leaders have been acquitted by The Hague is incorrect.
Based on its work methodology, hibrid.info assesses this content as "Fake News" and "Scam".
Reasoning:
The “Deception” rating is given to informational content that is manipulated in terms of visual (deepfake, cheapfake), audio, or textual content to deceive the audience. This form of deception is usually used to produce false and manipulated content.
The “Fake News” rating is given to informational content that is entirely fabricated or that contains factually incorrect claims or information. Content that is rated as fake news can be defined as having been created and distributed with the intent to misinform the public, i.e., to present a claim that is completely false as fact.