The Pakistani authorities arrested a man this week on charges of cyberterrorism for spreading fake news that helped set off violent riots in Britain following a deadly stabbing attack last month.
Racist and anti-immigrant rioting flared for days after the suspect in the killing of three young girls at a dance class, in the town of Southport, was falsely identified online as a Muslim asylum seeker.
In Pakistan, Farhan Asif, a freelance web developer, was arrested on Tuesday at his residence in Lahore, the local police said. He worked for Channel3Now, a news aggregation website that published sensational claims about the Southport attacker.
The site incorrectly reported that the suspect was a 17-year-old Muslim who had entered Britain by boat the previous year and was on “an MI6 watch list,” referring to Britain’s foreign intelligence service. In reality, the British authorities arrested a 17-year-old who was born and raised in Britain by a Christian family from Rwanda.
Mr. Asif’s arrest came after a meeting on Sunday in Lahore between the British high commissioner in Pakistan, Jane Marriott, and the chief minister for the state of Punjab, Maryam Nawaz Sharif, along with her father, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.
Local police sources indicated that the arrest was made at the request of the British authorities, although there was no official confirmation.
The British Embassy in Islamabad declined to comment on whether Britain had asked for the arrest. “This is a matter for the Pakistani authorities,” it said in a brief statement.
Speaking to ITV, a British broadcast network, Mr. Asif denied any responsibility for the violence and downplayed the site’s role in it.
Pakistani officials said that Mr. Asif had been arrested in a raid by the cybercrime wing of the Federal Investigation Agency. Two laptops and a mobile phone were seized from his residence.
According to a police report viewed by The New York Times, Mr. Asif admitted during interrogation to sharing false information. But he said that he had merely reposted it from another source without verifying its authenticity.
Channel3Now first offered an apology after its role in the riots was revealed. It was later shut down.
The site, which gave the appearance of being a local American television news station, mostly posted clickbait news articles about crime in the United States, Britain and Australia. A Facebook account for the site indicated that it was managed by people in Pakistan and the United States.
Read More: Pakistan Arrests Man Over Disinformation That Helped Spur U.K. Riots
