Fact Check: viral claim of Bashar al-Assad visit to his aunt’s home in Moscow is false
Claim: The video shows Bashar al-Assad visiting his aunt’s home in Moscow in 2024.
Fact: The claim is false. The video is from 2017 and shows Assad visiting wounded soldiers.
Hyderabad: On December 20, 2024, thousands of Syrians gathered in Damascus’s Umayyad Square, celebrating the establishment of a new government with fireworks and displays of a new flag. The event followed the return of many Syrians to the country after the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
Amid these celebrations, a video went viral, claiming to show Assad visiting his aunt’s home in Moscow. The video, shared by an X user, was accompanied by the caption: “Bashar al-Assad visits his aunt in her humble home in Moscow, the Republic of Russia, where he took refuge” (translated from Arabic). (Archive)
The 1:30-minute video shows Assad, along with his family, visiting a house and being warmly received by a lady and others in the household.
Similar claims can be seen here and here. (Archive 1, Archive 2)
Fact Check
NewsMeter found that the claim is false. The video is not recent nor show Assad visiting his aunt.
A reverse image search led us to the same footage posted on YouTube by the Syrian Presidency channel on September 16, 2018, under the title ‘The hero, Ayham Mahmoud Donia, after his injury, received President al-Assad and his family himself, walking on his feet’.
This hinted that the video is old and unrelated to recent events.
Further, a keyword search led to a report from Al Yawm Al Saabie on June 26, 2017, which described Assad and his family visiting wounded soldiers in the Hama countryside.
The report included the same video, with the description stating that the woman in the footage is the mother of a wounded Syrian soldier.
The report explained that one of the soldiers, Ayham Mahmoud Donia, had been severely injured but defied expectations by walking again to greet Assad. This visit was part of the regime’s ‘Wounded of the Nation Program,’ aimed at supporting soldiers wounded in the conflict.
Therefore, the claim that the video shows Assad visiting his aunt in Moscow is false. The footage is from a 2017 visit where Assad met injured soldiers in Syria.
(This story was originally published by newsmeter, and republished by english.varthabharati.in as part of the Shakti Collective)
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Three company directors held in Rs 100-crore investment fraud in Kochi
Kochi (Kerala) (PTI): Police on Sunday arrested three directors of a firm accused of cheating hundreds of investors of over Rs 100 crore through a fake investment scheme linked to agricultural tourism here, officials said.
The accused were identified as Muraleedharan, Ashik Murali and Akhil Murali, all natives of Thrissur.
The arrests were made by the Kalamassery police in connection with a fraud involving ATCOS (Agri Tourism Cooperative Society), a firm headquartered at Pathadipalam here.
Police said the company had promised high returns by collecting investments from the public in the agricultural tourism sector, but allegedly cheated hundreds of people and fled with the money.
ATCOS was registered under the Multi-State Cooperative Societies Act and operated 13 branches across various districts in Kerala, besides a branch in Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu, officials said.
When investors failed to receive their promised returns or the invested amount, complaints were filed with the police.
Officials said around 54 cases have been registered against the firm in 32 police stations across the state, including 29 cases at the Kalamassery police station alone.
Following instructions from Kochi City Police Commissioner K S Mahesh Kumar, a special investigation team was formed under the supervision of Deputy Commissioner of Police (Law and Order) Shehensha and Thrikkakara ACP Manoj Kumar.
The team traced the accused to an apartment in Amala Nagar in Thrissur, where they had been hiding after secretly renting the flat, officials said.
The bank accounts of the accused have been frozen, and steps have been initiated to trace their assets, officials said.
Police also conducted a raid at the company’s office at Pathadipalam and seized several documents related to the case.
The accused were produced before the Judicial First Class Magistrate Court in Kalamassery, which remanded them to judicial custody and sent them to Kakkanad jail.
Police said they would seek the custody of the accused for further interrogation as the investigation continues.
