Sun Paris Refugee Scare Busted

One might have thought that, after the Mail On Sunday’s front page claim yesterday that some of those involved in the mass killings in Paris had left Syria posing as refugees was comprehensively debunked (Zelo Street take on it right HERE), other parts of our free and fearless press might stop and think before recycling the same discredited guff. But that would be to reckon without the Murdoch Sun.

And so it came to pass that The Sun Newsdesk Twitter feed proclaimed to the world yesterday evening “Pictured is the suspected Paris terrorist who was was [sic] rescued from a sinking migrant boat”. Daniel Cutts’ article was unequivocal: “ONE of the men suspected of carrying out the Paris terror massacre was rescued from a sinking migrant boat”. And how would Sir know this dubiously sourced fact?

“Ahmed Almuhamed – whose passport was reportedly found at the scene of the Stade de France attack - was picked up from a stricken vessel off Greece … He was taken to the island of Leros and is thought to have caught a ferry to the mainland before travelling across Europe to France … Greek officials have already announced he crossed their border but he is now known to have crossed into Serbia four days later at Miratovce”.

Almost convincing. Do go on. “He stayed at a refugee centre in Presevo where he formally applied for asylum before continuing his journey through Croatia and Austria en route to the terror attack”. That’s quite some story, given that no formal identification of the body parts found near the Syrian passport have yet been identified (“suicide belts” can lead to, er, messy aftermaths). And there have been warnings about that passport.

For instance, the deeply subversive Guardian told yesterday that “there are several reasons why it’s worth waiting until all the facts are known before making too strong a link between the attacks and the refugee crisis … Investigators still need to verify the Syrian passport was carried by an attacker rather than a dead bystander … It’s possible that it was stolen … Forgeries are also common”.

But hey, this is the Sun! Stuff the cheese eating yogurt-knitting surrender monkeys at the Guardian!! Sadly, the weight of evidence against Rupe’s downmarket troops suggests they should have stopped and thought: as the Independent has reported, “French investigators fear that the apparent ‘planting’ of the passport is part of a sophisticated propaganda war being waged by Isis”. And it just got worse for the Sun.

The Independent again has the story: “A man has been detained in Serbia after he was found carrying a Syrian passport matching the same details as one found near the body of one of the Paris suicide bombers … It raises already serious concerns that the passport used to identify one of the attackers as a ‘refugee terrorist’ was faked”.

Will the Sun retract, apologise, and wait until they have some of those pesky facts to hand? You jest. Be frightened of what you’re told, Sun readers. Be very afraid.