ISLAMABAD: Agence France-Presse (AFP) Fact Check has debunked a major propaganda campaign being spread on social media by Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) supporters, calling the video of a confession attributed to former Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa completely fake and fabricated.
According to the French agency’s investigation, the viral video is the result of digital manipulation in which an attempt was made to give the impression by adding audio generated by artificial intelligence (AI) that the former Chief Justice had admitted to some external pressure on the decisions against Imran Khan.
In the video, which was shared by PTI supporters on social media platforms, especially X and Facebook, Qazi Faez Isa can be heard allegedly saying that Pakistan’s system is complex and his powers as Chief Justice were limited, while some unseen forces that cannot be named also influenced the decisions.
The Urdu caption above the video also claimed that he had no personal enmity with Imran Khan, but that the entire system had turned against the former prime minister. This misleading post was viewed and shared thousands of times on the internet.
AFP’s investigation and a Google reverse image search revealed that the clip was taken from a long conversation uploaded to the Oxford Union’s YouTube channel in October 2022.
Interestingly, at the time the interview was recorded, Qazi Faez Isa had not even taken the oath as Chief Justice, as he had assumed the post in September 2023.
During the original interview, he had discussed the legality of the Supreme Court’s decision to declare the presidential decision to dissolve the assembly illegal in April 2022, and there was no mention of bias or any external pressure anywhere in the entire video.
Digital forensic experts and the company Get Real Labs also confirmed the video, saying that there is a clear discrepancy between the lip movement seen in the clip and the voice heard behind the scenes.
According to the forensic report, this audio has been created using artificial intelligence (AI) to create a fake narrative by attributing it to the former Chief Justice. Therefore, it is proven that the video being made viral by PTI supporters is fabricated and has no connection to reality.
