Pages and accounts on social media circulated reports whose publishers claimed they were quoting sources in the Turkish opposition, alleging that Ahmed al-Sharaa holds both Turkish and German citizenship and owns bank accounts in the two countries containing sums estimated at more than 200 million dollars, replenished periodically through direct deposits.
The fact-checking team carried out an advanced search in both Turkish and Arabic, and it emerged that the claim attributes its information to an unspecified party without naming any party or official figure, and that no local or international news agency published this report. Tracing the origin of the claim revealed that its earliest source was the page Al-Risala Al-Arabiya, which has habitually published fabricated news, in addition to the fact that the claim contradicts strict banking oversight laws.
Why is this claim false?
Invented news: The claim relied on attributing information to unspecified, fictitious sources and on large financial figures that no official body or news agency supports, in order to suggest that the Syrian president holds foreign citizenships and wealth outside the country.
