- Man charged with cyber terrorism in Pakistan
- Disinformation linked to UK unrest
- Article falsely identified Southport attacker
Pakistani authorities have charged a man with cyber terrorism in relation to disinformation that is thought to have stoked unrest in the United Kingdom.
Farhan Asif was linked to Channel3Now, a website that published an article in the hours following the Southport attack last month that gave the assailant a bogus identity and stated he was an asylum seeker who arrived in the UK by sea last year.
The piece was widely shared on social media.
Unrest erupted in England and Northern Ireland following the horrific knife incident that killed three young girls.On Tuesday, Lahore police claimed they questioned Mr. Asif over the piece.
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Mr. Asif stated that he wrote the piece based on material copied from a UK-based social media account without checking it. He claimed that he ran the website alone.
Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency has already taken up the matter and will look into whether anyone else is involved.
The individual purporting to be from Channel3Now’s management informed that the publication of the phoney name “shouldn’t have happened, but it was an error, not intentional.”
