Claim: In an open letter, Imran Khan apologised to Nawaz Sharif for politically misleading the nation’s youth, spreading propaganda against him, and admitted to the cases against Sharif being false.
Fact: The video is doctored, and Khan has not apologised to Sharif in an open letter or otherwise. The video’s audio has been taken from Geo News’ report of the public apology issued to Sharif by PTI’s ex-media coordinator, Javed Badar.
On 22 December 2024, a video on Facebook of what looks like Geo News’ breaking news segment claimed Imran Khan had written an open letter of apology to Nawaz Sharif. The breaking news segment is titled as follows:
“عمران خان نے نواز شریف سے معافی مانگ لی”
According to Google Translate, this reads as follows in English:
“Imran Khan apologised to Nawaz Sharif”
The segment featured several statements of apology allegedly made by Khan in the letter, as shown below:
“بانی پی ٹی آیئ نواز شریف سے معافی مانگتا ہوں”
“قوم کے بچوں کی غلط سیاسی تربیت کی عمران خان”
“نواز شریف سے غلطیوں کا اعتراف کرتا ہوں عمران خان”
“نواز شریف سے معافی مانگتا ہوں جو بھی ہم نے کمپین کی غلط کی”
Google Translate could not offer an accurate translation of these statements due to their unconventional phrasing. However, they translate to English as follows:
“Founder of PTI apologises to Nawaz Sharif”
“Imran Khan said he politically misguided the nation’s youth”
“Imran Khan said he acknowledged his mistakes to Nawaz Sharif”
“I beg forgiveness from Nawaz Sharif whatever campaign we launched was wrong”
Fact or Fiction?
Visual aspects that show the video is doctored
The dark blue background, orange text boxes, and white font of the video closely resemble the visuals of Geo News’ breaking news segments. However, comparing the video’s keyframes to those of a recent breaking news segment by Geo News, posted to their Facebook page, reveals certain inconsistencies in the former, as shown below:
Firstly, the logo displayed in the bottom right corner of the video, while similar, does not match Geo News’ logo. Instead of the letter “ج” (as seen in the screenshot on the right), the clip shows the letter “چ”, indicating that the video was doctored to spread disinformation.
Secondly, in the middle of the video, the portion of the text box that appears on top of the video of Imran Khan is opaque. However, as is seen in the screenshot to the right, Geo News’ text boxes are, in fact, relatively transparent, allowing the video in the background to be seen.
Thirdly, at the top of the video, the font used for “BREAKING NEWS” is different from that used in the screenshot to the right.
There are also other aspects of the video that are not apparent in the news segment to the right. These include the absence of horizontal orange strips parallel to the displayed video and a headline in Urdu above the term “BREAKING NEWS”.
Apart from these visual discrepancies, the audio is also out of sync. For example, in the first four seconds, the audio does not align with the anchorperson’s lips. Moreover, in the timestamp of 0:02–0:03, a different anchorperson is momentarily seen, before disappearing, which points to the video not being original.
It should also be noted that till 0:18, the audio is that of a man detailing the alleged apologies made by Khan. However, at 0:18, the voice of a woman immediately takes over, asking:
“مزید خط میں کیا کہا گیا ہے؟”
According to Google Translate, this reads as follows in English:
“What else is said in the letter [of apology]?”
After this, at 0:20, another man’s voice (different from the narrator’s at the beginning) takes over and goes into more detail about the alleged apologies made by Khan.
The overall disjointedness of the audio in this video also points to it being doctored.
PTI’s ex-media coordinator apologises to Nawaz Sharif
To see if Khan had in fact addressed an open letter of apology to Nawaz Sharif, Soch Fact Check conducted a Google search for “Imran Khan apology Nawaz Sharif”. The first result that came our way was an article by The Express Tribune titled “Ex-PTI media coordinator apologises to Nawaz Sharif”.
According to the article, dated 6 December 2024, PTI’s former media coordinator Javed Badar had addressed “an open letter” to Sharif in which he admitted “that the party [PTI] had misled the youth”, and he “condemned the unjust cases filed against Nawaz Sharif that led to his imprisonment”. Furthermore, Badar “admitted to fabricating and spreading false propaganda about Nawaz Sharif”. Regarding the letter’s authenticity, the article stated that Badar had confirmed to Geo News that he had written it.
Conducting a search on YouTube for “Javed Badar Apology Nawaz Sharif” led us to a video that showed a Geo News segment on this topic. However, it was not posted by Geo News’ official YouTube account.
Running a reverse image search of the video’s keyframes, we came across a Facebook post that showed pictures from the video. In the pictures, the time is shown at the bottom right corner as a little past 2 pm. Soch Fact Check then searched for “Geo News 6 December 2pm” on YouTube, which led us to this video, posted by Geo News’ official YouTube account, that details the incident of Badar’s open letter to Sharif between 5:09–5:39.
The voice of the narrator in this official video is identical to that of the narrator who speaks for the first 18 seconds of the video in the claim. Moreover, the script used to describe the apologies in both videos is the same. It should be noted, however, that the video in the claim does not use the full script utilized in the official video by Geo News.
The video in the claim also cuts out words from the script to hide the fact that Badar was the one apologising. For example, between 0:08–0:11 in the video in the claim, the narrator states only that:
“قوم کے بچوں کی غلط سیاسی تربیت کی”
However, the full sentence, as stated in the official video between 5:26–5:30, is as follows:
“بانی پی ٹی آیئ کے ساتھ مل کر قوم کے بچوں کی غلط سیاسی تربیت کی”
This reads as follows in English:
“Politically misguided the nation’s youth with the founder of PTI”
The video in the claim also features the voice of a woman and another man, but these are not included in the official video by Geo News. Soch Fact Check was not able to locate where these audios were taken from.
A comparison of the keyframes from the video in the claim (left) and the official coverage by Geo News (right) is shown below:
Virality
The video in the claim has 406 K views. On Facebook, it was shared here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.
On TikTok, it was shared here.
Conclusion: The video in the claim is doctored. Imran Khan did not write an open letter of apology to Nawaz Sharif. Javed Badar, PTI’s ex-media coordinator, wrote this letter.
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Background image in cover photo: India TV News
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