FALSE: This image does not show Kenya’s deputy president under arrest
An image shared on Facebook claiming to show Kenya’s Deputy President (DP), William Ruto, under arrest is FALSE.
The image shows Ruto walking, arms behind his back, with a contingent of armed police officers trailing him.
The text accompanying the image claims: “ Daily Nation and Kieleweke tomorrow: Dp Ruto arrested by close to 10 officers at his official residence in Karen”. The reference prompted PesaCheck to examine the headlines in the Kenyan newspaper Daily Nation for 31 August 2021 — a day after the post was made: No news of the arrest of Ruto was carried by the newspaper for that date or on any other news platform in the following days.
However, a reverse image search brings up articles with the image, including one by The Star. The caption on the image reads, “Deputy President William Ruto when he welcomed his new security team at his Karen residence on August 30, 2021”.
The image is credited to the Deputy President’s Press Service and was also published on Ruto’s Facebook page on 30 August 2021 alongside other photos taken from the same event.
“Sharing a cup of tea with the new security team as I welcome them to the Official Residence of the Deputy President,” the politician wrote.
PesaCheck has looked into an image claiming to show Kenya’s Deputy President, William Ruto, under arrest, and finds it to be FALSE.
This post is part of an ongoing series of PesaCheck fact-checks examining content marked as potential misinformation on Facebook and other social media platforms.
By partnering with Facebook and similar social media platforms, third-party fact-checking organisations like PesaCheck are helping to sort fact from fiction. We do this by giving the public deeper insight and context to posts they see in their social media feeds.
Have you spotted what you think is fake or false information on Facebook? Here’s how you can report. And, here’s more information on PesaCheck’s methodology for fact-checking questionable content.
This fact-check was written by PesaCheck fact-checker Simon Muli and edited by PesaCheck chief copy editor Rose Lukalo.
The article was approved for publication by managing editor Enock Nyariki.
PesaCheck is East Africa’s first public finance fact-checking initiative. It was co-founded by Catherine Gicheru and Justin Arenstein, and is being incubated by the continent’s largest civic technology and data journalism accelerator: Code for Africa. It seeks to help the public separate fact from fiction in public pronouncements about the numbers that shape our world, with a special emphasis on pronouncements about public finances that shape government’s delivery of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) public services, such as healthcare, rural development and access to water / sanitation. PesaCheck also tests the accuracy of media reportage. To find out more about the project, visit pesacheck.org.
PesaCheck is an initiative of Code for Africa, through its innovateAFRICA fund, with support from Deutsche Welle Akademie, in partnership with a coalition of local African media and other civic watchdog organisations.