A viral video on social media is being shared with a claim that it shows a shootout in Saudi Arabia which led to the killing of the assassin of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. However, we found that the aforementioned video is a CCTV footage from Ecuador and was recorded in January when a former cop was shot to death in Santiago de Guayaquil.
Journalist Jamal Khashoggi was assassinated in 2018 at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey.
CLAIM
The video is being massively shared on Facebook and Twitter with a claim which reads: “Today, shootout of colonel from Saudi Arabia who was involved in the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in #Saudi Consulate in #Turkey.” (sic)
The viral clip shows CCTV footage from a restaurant where two gunmen walk in and open fire at a person.
WHAT WE KNOW
We fragmented the video into several keyframes using the Yandex search engine and followed it up with a Yandex reverse image search.
This directed us to several news reports which pointed out that the viral video in question is from Ecuador. According to a report by a website called Viral Tab, “the incident was filmed at an unnamed seafood restaurant in Guayaquil located in the western Ecuadorian province of Guayas when two gunmen shot dead an ex-cop.”
A Google keyword search using terms “Top cop shot in Guayaquil Ecuador” helped us find a report in Ecuadorian daily newspaper El Universo describing the incident.
The report stated that 44-year-old Jorge Fernando Lino Macas who was shot dead was a former cop who had a long criminal history. In 2018 he was detained by the Anti-Narcotics unit.
Evidently, a video from Ecuador is being shared on social media with a false claim that it shows the killing of a Saudi Colonel involved in Khashoggi's assassination.
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