A judge in Pakistan on Monday dismissed the charges for an individual who stood accused of inciting the widespread anti-immigration riots in the United Kingdom earlier this month.
The ruling in a Lahore courtroom came after Farhan Asif was arrested last week on cyberterrorism-related offenses for allegedly spreading false information about the identity of the suspect who brutally murdered three young British girls on July 29.
The deaths of the juveniles and the subsequent injury of 10 others in the unprovoked stabbing attack at a dance party in the city of Southport sparked 11 days of civil disorder that spread throughout England and Northern Ireland.
Authorities claimed the 32-year-old employee of the news aggregation service Channel3Now published materials on Facebook, YouTube, and X that incorrectly described the perpetrator as a failed asylum seeker who committed the crimes with Islamist motivations.
Police in the U.K. would later reveal that the alleged culprit was a 17-year-old Wales-born son of Rwandan migrants.
The defendant's lawyer told reporters after the hearing that investigators had no evidence that his client intentionally disseminated the false reports, citing Asif’s deletion of the posts six hours after learning that the content was inaccurate.
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