On May 9, 2023, a Georgian-language Facebook account published a photo showing an elderly man and two police officers. The elderly man is holding a photo of Mikheil Saakashvili, the third president of Georgia. According to the attached description, the person depicted in the photo is a war veteran who was arrested by the police for demanding Saakashvili’s release. Later, another account shared the photo with a similar description.
The disseminated photo is altered using computer software. The original version of the photo, which was taken on May 9, 2020, shows war veteran Vakhtang Adamashvili holding a photo of Stalin.
The photo that went viral on Facebook is fabricated. Its original version was shot on May 9, 2020.
According to “Voice of America“, the photo shows Vakhtang Adamashvili, a veteran of the Second World War, who was celebrating the 75th anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany. In the original version of the photo, it can be seen that instead of the photo of the ex-president, Adamashvili is holding a photo of Joseph Stalin. The claim that the police arrested him is also false, the “Voice of America” article mentions that the police are helping the 94-year-old veteran to move.
About the Source
Bitsadze Nana, the user that disseminated the fabricated photo, is a fake Facebook account that has spread false information in the past as well. In 2020, the page Who’s Who, after studying the account, determined that the user was stealing photos of Facebook user Alyona Timonchuk.
False information disseminated by the user has been debunked by Myth Detector in the past as well. For more details, see our articles:
- Fabricated Quote about Saakashvili in the Name of Irakli Kobakhidze (in Georgian)
- Information, as if a Georgian Emigrant Inherited an Apartment Because “Napoli” Emerged Victorious in the Championship is False (in Georgian)
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