Questions Of Authenticity Over The Al-Bhouti Assassination Video

Last night I posted about this video claiming to show the assassination of Dr. Mohammad Said Ramadan al-Bouti

Since then, a couple of people have highlighted claims that the video was faked, the first claim being based of this image:

This attempts to suggest that the video is fake because the chair cannot be seen on the assassination video.  If we look at this earlier video of Al-Bhouti sat in the same position we can see it matches what's shown in the assassination video

Now let's take a look at the assassination video before and after the explosion, in particular the area circled in red

Here we can see that what would have been covering the chair before the explosion appears to be missing in the second photograph.  Rather than evidence of the video being fake the original claim actually provides more evidence than points to the video being genuine.

Another claim, based off the original picture of alleged fakery and the following photograph, is there's two mic stands, while only one is visible in the video

These are photographs that were published on the SANA website, which also provides other photographs that help clear this up.  Here we have a side view of the mic stand, which clearly shows the mic taped on top of the stand with white tape, which from certain angles gives the appearance of their being two microphones

So again, this seems to be more confirmation that the video of genuine.  To me, it seems very hard to escape the fact that this video is the real deal, so the question remains, what does this actually show us about the attack?


You can contact the author on Twitter @brown_moses or by email at brownmoses@gmail.com

Video Claims To Show The Moment Of Mohammad Al-Bouti's Assassination

A very unusual video has been posted online today that claims to show the assassination Dr. Mohammad Said Ramadan al-Bouti, who was reportedly killed in a suicide attack in Damascus on March 22nd (graphic)

There's obviously some questions of authenticity when it comes to videos like this, so let's take a look at two still images, one from the video, and one from state media

Although the quality of the video is poor, and the smoke from the apparent explosion obscures finer details, a few things do stand out.  The white objects on the right of the table appears to match, as does the damage to the mosaic.  The furniture and stripes on the wall appear to match as well, so either this is an extremely elaborate fake, or a genuine video.

The question is then, what does this show? Some people have queried the actions of the first man who approaches him, suggesting he could be stabbing Al-Bouti, while others think he's trying to pull Al-Bouti out of the way.  It's something that will certainly be looked at very closely in the coming days, and is sure to generate a lot of discussion.


You can contact the author on Twitter @brown_moses or by email at brownmoses@gmail.com