Accounts on social media circulated a report claiming that Lebanese MP Ghayath Yazbek had stated that the Lebanese government seized 3 million dollars belonging to Syrian businessman Rami Makhlouf, and that the money had been sent from abroad to Lebanon to support remnants of the former Syrian regime inside Syria.
The fact-checking team reviewed open sources and the official social media accounts of Ghayath Yazbek, and ran a keyword search, but found no statement of this content on his official accounts or on any news platform. Tracing the origin of the report showed that it had been published by the page Syria Al Ghad, a page known for circulating misleading reports.
Why is this claim false?
Fabricated statements: The claim rested on attributing to Lebanese MP Ghayath Yazbek a statement he never made, and circulating it through a page known for misleading content, in order to suggest that an official Lebanese measure had been taken against funds attributed to Rami Makhlouf.
