Fact-check: Doctored video falsely claims Saudi anchor criticised PM over Umrah expenses

Following Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s four-day official visit to Saudi Arabia from March 19 to 22, a video began circulating on social media in Pakistan, purportedly showing an interview of the prime minister with a Saudi news channel. In the clip, the interviewer appears to criticise him for performing Umrah with his family at government expense.

The claim is false. The clip is doctored.

Claim

“Saudi anchor mocks Shehbaz Sharif,” wrote a user on X (Twitter) on March 23. “On one hand, you ask the Saudi government for aid, and on the other, you use government funds to bring 30 members of your family for Umrah.”

Accompanying the text is a one-minute TikTok video of a supposed interview with the prime minister. A voiceover claims that a Saudi anchor criticised Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz for misusing Pakistan’s national exchequer to finance an Umrah trip for 30 family members.

The video also includes a segment where the interviewer seemingly asks the above question in Arabic, to which the prime minister replies, “I would say it does not reflect well.”

At the time of writing, the video had garnered over 74,000 views and 2,800 likes.

Identical claims took off elsewhere on X here and here.

Fact

The interview shown in the viral video is actually from 2023 and does not contain any such question from the interviewer.

Through a combined keyword search, Geo Fact Check found that the actual interview took place on January 16, 2023, with Al Arabiya, a Saudi broadcaster, when Prime Minister Shehbaz was on an official visit to the UAE.

The full 17-minute-long interview was posted on Al Arabiya’s official YouTube channel that year. The interviewer asked the questions in Arabic while PM Shehbaz responded in English.

Geo Fact Check translated the transcript from the YouTube video and confirmed that at no point did the interviewer ask about an Umrah trip or any alleged government spending on the prime minister’s family.

The interview primarily focused on Pakistan’s relations with Gulf countries, its economy, and Indian Illegally-occupied Kashmir. The original interview, along with the transcript, can be viewed here:

Furthermore, in the viral clip, the interviewer’s lip movements do not match the words spoken, indicating the footage has been edited. This is a common characteristic of manipulated videos, as highlighted in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) guide on detecting deepfakes.

Additionally, there is no verified information about the prime minister allegedly taking any family member along on his official trip or whether any expenses were covered by the government.

Verdict: The circulating video misrepresents PM Shehbaz Sharif’s 2023 interview. The original footage does not contain any discussion about an Umrah trip or government expenses. The viral video has been manipulated through dubbing.

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