Authors
Kushel HM is a mechanical engineer-turned-journalist, who loves all things football, tennis and films. He was with the news desk at the Hindustan Times, Mumbai, before joining Newschecker.
Pankaj Menon is a fact-checker based out of Delhi who enjoys ‘digital sleuthing’ and calling out misinformation. He has completed his MA in International Relations from Madras University and has worked with organisations like NDTV, Times Now and Deccan Chronicle online in the past.
Claim
Photos of a child allegedly raped by former US president Barack Obama, purportedly released after the unsealing of court documents naming those associated with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Epstein was arrested on sex trafficking charges in July 2019 and died by suicide in prison a few weeks later.
The archived version of the tweet can be seen here. We also received this ticket on our Whatsapp tipline (9999499044), requesting us to fact-check it.
Fact
Newschecker ran a reverse image search of the photo on the right, which led us to this Flickr photo, dated January 7, 2016. “The President snuggles with his niece Savita Ng after his sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, and her family dropped by the Oval Office,” read the caption of the official White House photograph. The same photo was available with Wikimedia Commons, confirming that it was a photo of Obama with his niece.
A reverse image search of the photo on the left led us to multiple media reports from 2015 and 2016, stating that it shows a girl found dead inside a cardboard box after being kidnapped from near an elementary school in Kalideres, west of the Indonesian capital, Jakarta. The reports can be seen here, here, here and here, which further confirms that the viral photos are being falsely linked to the Epstein case.
Result: False
Sources
Flickr photo, January 7, 2016
Bulletin Media post, October 7, 2015
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Authors
Kushel HM is a mechanical engineer-turned-journalist, who loves all things football, tennis and films. He was with the news desk at the Hindustan Times, Mumbai, before joining Newschecker.
Pankaj Menon is a fact-checker based out of Delhi who enjoys ‘digital sleuthing’ and calling out misinformation. He has completed his MA in International Relations from Madras University and has worked with organisations like NDTV, Times Now and Deccan Chronicle online in the past.
