AKEED, Aya Khawaldeh

A page on Facebook titled Akhbar Al Ordun (News of Jordan) reposted an old story, published on a London-based Arabic site and dating back to March 2014. The story originally had the following headline: "Jordan Has Not Officially Asked Britain To Extradite Kurdi." The page added the phrase: "Surprise by British Ambassador." It presented the story as new and published it on 25 January 2017 after slightly editing it to hide the fact that it was old.

The page is active and has quarter of a million followers. It provides the following information about itself: "A specialized team. Daily summary of key news of electronic sites and newspapers." Such pages are unregistered and unlicensed as media outlets. However, thanks to the sheer size of their followers, they turn into influential outlets in a manner that is different from the personal accounts of active individuals.

The page published the story of the London-based site with two modifications, which prove that deception was intentional. It deleted the name of UK Ambassador Peter Millett from the body of the story; the ambassador has been replaced by Edward Oakden. It also deleted the piece of information that the ambassador (then) provided about the conditions for extraditing Salafist fundamentalist Abu Qatadah as being different from the agreement for the extradition of wanted persons.  

A follow-up done by the Jordanian Media Credibility Monitor (AKEED) traced the source of the original story. The Monitor observed that other media outlets did not fall for the story, with the exception of one news site, which fell into the "trap." However, it was noticeable that the story was widely followed on social media. By the time of writing this report, around 4,000 social media users had interacted with it. The story had also had 500 shares and a similar number of comments on the same page.

AKEED observed the fast spread of the news on the pages of social media sites because Walid Kurdi"s name has resurfaced in the wake of calls for bringing him back and recovering the funds he had embezzled against the background of the case of shipping contracts and the case of selling products of the Phosphate Company.

The publication of this story happened against the backdrop of several incidents that were connected to Kurdi"s name, including the government"s attempt to reduce the budget deficit by imposing new taxes and raising prices. There have been demands for bringing Kurdi back to reduce the deficit. The hashtag "#Bring Back_Walid_Kurdi" has been observed on a large scale.

The story that many social media users circulated reads as follows:

The UK ambassador in Amman announced that the Jordanian government has not officially requested the extradition of Walid Kurdi, who is wanted for the Jordanian judiciary. Kurdi has been sentenced to a long term in prison for embezzling hundreds of millions. He is currently residing in the United Kingdom.

A few months ago, a Jordanian court convicted Kurdi--a prominent businessman who had been responsible for the phosphate sector--in a case of financial and administrative corruption involving tens of millions of dollars.

The ambassador told media people he had met recently that the legal basis in the agreement on the extradition of wanted persons, signed between the two countries, governed the extradition of persons. He indicated that Kurdi is in Britain, but that the official authorities have not requested his extradition.

He stressed that a request by the government would have been met positively if it were submitted to us officially and that the necessary measures would be taken to hand over Kurdi. A local parliamentary committee has asked the government to specify the level of its pursuit of Kurdi internationally.

It is worth mentioning that the story was largely circulated when it was published three years ago on news sites that ran it, attributed to its source.