A relatively unknown portal Njuz.info published an article signed by a certain Dick Cheney whose title reads: (PHOTO) A MEETING BETWEEN SASHO MIJALKOV AND ZORAN ZAEV IN MERIOT? Is a new election coalition being signed??? The same text was transmitted by the portal Analitikum.mk. The text states that the president of SDSM, Zoran Zaev, was allegedly in a restaurant in the center of Skopje in the company of the former director of UBK, Sasho Mijalkov. The whole text is written in question form. Countless conspiracy theories have been raised: whether there was any reconciliation, whether there was an electoral trade for votes, whether an electoral coalition was signed, and so on. A photo of a Porsche car with Strumica license plates, which is claimed to be owned by Zaev, has been published.
We will not discuss the ownership, but the fact that none of the people who were photographed together with the car is wearing a protective mask in this corona-time, can’t go unnoticed. This fact only confirms that the photo was not taken recently. The following published photo is a collage of 3 photos showing a restaurant in the center of Skopje, the interior of a certain cafe/restaurant with a photo montage from a meeting between Zoran Zaev and Sasho Mijalkov.
One does not need to have a high level of forensic knowledge to notice that the interior or the table where two people sitting in the big photo are sitting is different from the one in the photomontage of the alleged encounter that is shown with an arrow. Another fact that indicates that this is false news is that the people present at the restaurant are relatively overdressed for these hot days and none of the tables have an antibacterial agent that is mandatory at this time of the global coronavirus pandemic. The interior of the photo differs from the interior of the bar where the meeting is claimed to have taken place. Finally, we show you the original and photoshopped photo, so judge for yourself which meeting really happened.
FINANCED BY
This project was funded in part through a U.S. Embassy grant. The opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed herein are those of the implementers/authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Government.
PARTNERS
