Several Albanian-language online media outlets reported on Wednesday (April 8) that Iran's new Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, has died.
The media that reported on this event are "Veriu.info","JavaNews.al" and "Periskopi.com". The latter has made the claim only on its official Facebook page "Periscopes".
They used as a source an account on X, which they claimed belonged to the US Army.
The truth?
After fact-checking conducted by hibrid.info, it was determined that this claim is not accurate.
In the articles published by "JavaNews.al" and "Veriu.info", there is also a link to the announcement from a social media account X called "America Military".
After verification, it was confirmed that this is not the official account of the US Army.
The biography of this account reads: "Updates on global conflicts and wars, Breaking news, Geopolitical analysis, Commentary page, Follow us for daily updates." This account appears to be based in South Asia. (see here)
The claim of this account, which Albanian-language media have referred to, was made on April 4.
The suspicions that this account is not official start from its name, as the word "army" in English is "MiLitary", not "MiLLitary".
Then, the name of the Iranian Supreme Leader is misspelled, from “Mojtaba” to “Mujtaba”. Also, his surname is written in lowercase (khamenei). Another element is that the word that the Albanian-language media has referred to as “change of life”, in the post is written “dea…”, followed by “View more” (See more), but this phrase is not clickable and does not provide further information. For your information, the word "change of life" in English is spelled "dead".
The official US military account on X is this "US Army".
The latest information on Mojtaba Khamenei's health condition: British media "The Times", on April 6, reported that Khamenei is unconscious and receiving medical treatment in the Iranian city of Qom.
Analyze:
The claim by some Albanian-language media outlets about the death of Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, referring to a supposedly official US Army account, is unconfirmed and not supported by official sources.
The information that has been circulating is based on an account on X that is not an official US Army account, as claimed, and contains questionable data, including linguistic errors.
Verification shows that there is no official announcement of Khamenei's death, while other reports only speak of a serious health condition and his medical treatment.
Therefore, based on the working methodology, hibrid.info assesses this content as "Unverified".
Reasoning:
The "Unverified" rating is given to those informative contents that do not provide sufficient information to confirm the claims made in the report, and which could not be verified due to certain circumstances (speed, lack of sources) during the publication of the content.