AAP FACTCHECK – An international news agency has reported that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has “frozen” a 17-billion-euro arms deal with France over the arrest of Telegram founder Pavel Durov, according to claims on social media.
This is false. The news report is fake and there’s no evidence the arms deal has been put on hold or cancelled.
A Facebook post shows what appears to be an Al Jazeera social media video report. Text on the video reads: “The UAE has frozen the contract actions for the purchase of 80 fighter aircraft from France. This comes after the arrest of businessman Pavel Durov in Paris.”
The text continues: “It is known that the UAE Prime Minister vetoed the continuation of action on the contract.”
The video features supposed quotes attributed to Al Jazeera political analyst Marwan Bishara. He supposedly describes the arrest of Mr Durov as a “political mistake” and calls the charges “far-fetched”.
The video, or claims from it, spread quickly on social media sites such as Telegram and X, where one post has had nearly eight million views.
The UAE did sign a 17b-euro (A$28b) deal with France in 2021 to purchase 80 Rafale fighter jets and 12 military helicopters.
Mr Durov, a Russian-born billionaire, was arrested by French police on August 24 and faces multiple charges over an investigation of criminal activity on social media platform Telegram. He is a citizen of multiple countries, including the UAE.
The fake video closely mimics the look of videos on Al Jazeera’s social media channels. But there is no evidence of that particular video on any of Al Jazeera’s social media channels.
There’s also no indication on Al Jazeera’s website that Mr Bishara made the comments attributed to him in the video, and the footage of him appears to be taken from a recent interview on US politics.
Al Jazeera did not respond to a request for comment by AAP FactCheck, but did make a statement to UK fact-checking organisation Full Fact confirming the video was “fake”.
The UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a statement on August 26 that it was “closely following the case of its citizen Pavel Durov”, and had submitted a request to France to “provide him with all the necessary consular services in an urgent manner”.
However, there was no statement made about cancelling the arms deal and no media releases about it on the ministry’s news website or the site of the prime minister and cabinet.
UAE’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not respond to AAP FactCheck’s request for comment, while a French Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson said they would not comment on the claim but did point to other debunks relating to the claim.
There have been no statements in the French ministry’s media releases regarding the deal being cancelled or paused since Mr Durov’s arrest.
The claim has also been debunked by French media sites France24 and RFI.
The Verdict
False – The claim is inaccurate.
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