Friday, in the 10th arrondissement of Paris, a man opened fire at the end of the morning, near a Kurdish cultural center. Three people were killed and three others injured. Since Monday, after several days in police custody, the 69-year-old man suspected of being behind the killing was indicted on Monday and imprisoned, in accordance with the requisitions of the prosecution. He himself recognized on Sunday “a hatred of foreigners that has become completely pathological”. Earlier, he had admitted initially wanting to target foreigners in Saint-Denis, but had finally given up to go to rue d’Enghien.
While in police custody, he repeatedly confessed to wanting to “murder migrants, foreigners”. The former train driver is also known to justice for three more or less similar cases. Why did you target the Kurdish community this time? While in police custody, the suspect said he resented them for having “made prisoners during their fight against Daesh instead of killing them”.
Only, despite the confessions of the 69-year-old man, several rumors have circulated on social networks. According to some Internet users, the killer would have a different identity and would actually be from Turkey. 20 minutes traces the route of this fake news.
FAKE OFF
It is sometimes difficult to know the starting point of a rumor. The invention of “William Mehmet” is an exception. In the language of the Internet, we call it a troll… become with the minutes a fake news ideologically sound.
On Twitter, Friday, the journalist specializing in police-justice of Cnews Amaury Bucco publishes on a thread all the information around the killing. We are a few hours away from the tragedy and several elements of the investigation are beginning to come out: the number of injured, the age and origin of the killer, as well as the qualification or not of the attack as a terrorist act. “The suspect is a certain William M., 69, French, born in Montreuil”, announces the journalist. “William Mehmet, I knew it! “, responds a user. This is obviously a troll, as there are many on social networks.
The far left as a conductor?
It could have stopped there, but it would be bad to know Twitter. The Internet user’s joke was finally taken for a true fact. “In Paris, the Muslim William Mehmet, of Turkish origin, fan of Erdogan, carried out an attack against the Kurdish community”, publishes a first Internet user. A second Twittos will also describe him as an “anti-Kurdish and anti-Christian gray wolf known for his sword attacks”.
They will not be the only ones to relay the name of William Mehmet. “The name of the 10th arrondissement shooter is William Mehmet. Relationship with Turkey and not the extreme right. La France insoumise, la Nupes, you have it in the c… with your filthy and dishonest speeches on the implication of the far right”, is indignant another. “It is certain that it was a planned attack and that certain forces were behind”, affirms a last. On the accounts relaying the false information, Internet users seem to have for the most part a proximity to the extreme right.
A storytelling around the life of William Mehmet will even be invented. The man is said to come from a non-practicing Turkish family. The family would have given “European first names” to their children so that they fit in. “However, William Mehmet quickly moved to the anti-Kurdish and anti-Christian extreme right,” claims a surfer. An interview with the suspect’s father, broadcast on BFMTV, will also be reused. “Notice his father’s Turkish accent,” netizens note.
A name without foreign sounding
It will finally be necessary to wait until December 24 to be sure of a first official denial, published by the journalist Amaury Brelet, of Current values. “Contrary to the (false) rumor circulating, the suspect of the killing in Paris is not called William Mehmet, indicates a police source to Current Values. And his name is not foreign-sounding. Subsequently, the far-right activist Damien Rieu will ask on his Telegram account to no longer broadcast the fake news.
Whether Current values publishes the real identity of the suspect, at 20 minutes, our rules are a bit different. Between the media, there is not as such a rule as to the revelation of the identity of a suspect. In our articles, only the name “William M.” will be mentioned. Most of the time, these decisions will be decided on a case-by-case basis in our newsroom. In the majority of cases, we wait at least for the indictment or even the conviction to disclose the surname. The goal is not to withhold information, but to protect the secrecy of the investigation and the presumption of innocence.