Claim: Ahmad Noorani has reported that Asif Zardari and Nawaz Sharif gave General Bajwa a PKR 5 billion bribe to remove Imran Khan from power and disqualify him.
Fact: Ahmad Noorani categorically denies reporting any such story. Soch Fact Check could not find any such information published in any newspaper online with his name.
On 16 December 2022, several people tweeted that investigative journalist Ahmad Noorani reported that General Qamar Bajwa, who was the Chief of Army Staff at the time, received a 50 billion rupee bribe from Asif Ali Zardari and Nawaz Sharif to oust Imran Khan and get him disqualified successfully.
Fact or Fiction?
Ahmad Noorani directly responded to a version of this misinformation on Twitter. In this tweet, he claims that he had never said anything of this sort, and that this was an attempt to discredit his investigative report for Fact Focus which revealed how General Bajwa and his family built assets abroad and at home between 2016 and 2022.
Soch Fact Check also reviewed the websites of Fact Focus and Haqaiq — publications Noorani founded — and found no recent report from him that contained information about a 50 billion rupee bribe paid to General Bajwa. We also reached out to Noorani, who clarified that he had not reported any information about a bribe being paid to General Bajwa by Asif Zardari and Nawaz Sharif.
Virality
Soch Fact Check conducted a CrowdTangle analysis for the 4-day period from 15 December 2022 to 18 December 2022 using the following search terms:
- “Ahmad Noorani” “Bajwa” “50 arab”
- “باجوا“ ”عرب 50“ ”احمد نورانی”
On Facebook, we found a post here. On Twitter we found a tweet here. Soon after Ahmad Noorani’s clarification, we noticed that posts started being removed from social media.
Conclusion: Ahmad Noorani did not report that General Bajwa received a 50-arab bribe from Asif Zardari and Nawaz Sharif.