Lahore court releases Farhan Asif as FIA found him innocent in London riots case

Farhan Asif, a Pakistani national accused of involvement in the London riots, has been declared innocent by a court following an investigation by Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) Cyber Crime Unit on Monday.

According to the 24NewsHD TV channel, the court of a magistrate in Lahore ordered Farhan Asif's immediate release, leading to the removal of his handcuffs.

According to the FIA, the article that Farhan Asif shared, which was initially thought to have incited the riots, was already circulating on social media before he reposted it. Upon realizing that the article was false, Farhan promptly deleted it from his social media accounts and publicly apologised.

Farhan Asif was arrested by Lahore police on August 20, 2024, under suspicion of cyber terrorism related to disinformation believed to have fueled unrest in the UK.

The arrest followed UK authorities linking him to a website that falsely identified the Southport attacker as an asylum seeker. The article was widely shared on social media, contributing to unrest in England and Northern Ireland after a fatal stabbing incident.

During the investigation, the police recovered two laptops and a mobile phone from Farhan’s residence. It was discovered that the account associated with the website Channel3Now was active, and Farhan admitted to sharing the information without verifying its authenticity.

Farhan Asif explained that he ran the account to share news and had copied the content from another user without checking its accuracy.

Despite the initial allegations, the FIA cleared Farhan of any malicious intent, concluding that he had unknowingly shared misleading information.

The district court magistrate ordered his release after the FIA presented their findings, bringing an end to a case that had wrongly implicated him in the UK unrest.

Reporter: Irfan Malik