An old video showing exiled Bangladeshi opposition figure Tarique Rahman in a wheelchair has resurfaced online alongside false claims it shows him after being assaulted in London. But the journalist that took the clip told AFP it was in fact filmed in 2008 when Rahman arrived in the United Kingdom for medical treatment. A spokesperson for Rahman’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) has also denied he was recently attacked.
The video was shared on Facebook here on September 15, 2023.
Its caption and text overlay both say: “Tarique Rahman admitted to hospital after mass beating in London.”
The video has been viewed over 500 times.
Rahman has lived in the United Kingdom since a Bangladeshi court allowed him to travel there in 2008 for medical treatment after he told the court he was tortured while in remand (archived link).
He has applied for political asylum and has not returned to Bangladesh (archived link).
Rahman was sentenced in absentia to nine years in jail for alleged corruption in 2023. He was already given a life sentence in 2018 for his role in a 2004 grenade attack — when his mother, Khaleda Zia, was premier — that killed more than 20 people during a political rally for then-opposition leader Sheikh Hasina.
The false claim has circulated in the run-up to Bangladesh’s general election expected on January 7, 2024.
AFP reports Hasina — the incumbent Prime Minister — is all but assured of winning the polls, with the opposition BNP and other parties decrying what they condemn as a “farcical” vote.
The video has also been shared alongside similar claims here and here on Facebook.
The claim, however, is false.
Rahman in London
Shairul Kabir Khan, a press official for the BNP, said his party is not aware of any physical assault on Tarique Rahman in London.
“If such an incident happened, we would have been aware of it,” he told AFP on December 21.
A reverse image search on Google using keyframes from the video found a similar clip on the YouTube channel of Tanvir Ahmed, a journalist who works for the UK-based organisation Channel S (archived link).
The video was published on September 13, 2008. Its caption reads: “Wounded Tarique Rahman at London Gatwick Airport.”
Below is a screenshot comparison of the video shared in one of the false posts (left) and the YouTube video from 2008 (right):
Ahmed told AFP he took the video when Rahman arrived at Gatwick Airport from Bangladesh in 2008.
“This video was shot by me on September 12, 2008 at London Gatwick airport. I was then working as a correspondent for Bangladeshi broadcaster Channel i,” he said.
A report by online news organisation 4VisionBangla published on December 27, 2008 also used footage of Rahman’s arrival showing a similar scene (archived link).
The video’s description partly says: “BNP leader Tarique Rahman came to London with severe wound as the army-backed interim government of 1/11 allowed him to travel abroad as he had given a written undertaking not to be involved in politics in the future.”
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