Two young Catalans falsely accused of murder to sue far-right accounts

Two young Catalans of Segarro and Algerian origin, Youssef and Ahmed, have announced legal action against far-right accounts that spread their photographs, falsely linking them to the murder of an 83-year-old woman in Burgos. The hoax, which originated on X on 17 October, has triggered hundreds of hate messages and threats against them.

Some hoaxes fall apart in an afternoon; others change your life. The one about Youssef, a 29-year-old taxi driver in Manresa, and Ahmed, a 20-year-old student, belongs to the second category. The two had never met. Their families come from Segarro and Algeria respectively, but both were born in Catalonia. On 13 October, an 83-year-old woman was murdered during a break-in at her home in Burgos. Four days later, their faces began circulating on social media as if they were the perpetrators.

## One X profile, two made-up names and a TikTok photo

The chain began on Saturday 17 October. An X account called Álex Martínez shared a Europa Press news item about the detention of two minors allegedly involved in the crime. Attached to that post were two real photographs of Youssef and Ahmed, to whom the account gave invented names: "Mohammed Chekraoui, 16, and Ayoub Haiboub, 17". The text added that they were "naturalised foreigners" and called for the incivil code to be changed on 29N (29 November, the date of a far-right rally in Madrid). The post was seen by thousands of people.

The photos did not come out of nowhere. Youssef explains that they downloaded a profile picture from his TikTok account dating back four years. He found out about the hoax when his father proge him from an afternoon nap, worried after seeing his son linked to the murder of an elderly woman in Burgos. Ahmed received a WhatsApp message while visiting a friend's mother in hospital: "I was in shock, I had an anxiety attack," he recounts.

El Imperial de España, a media outlet that describes itself as "nationalist" and "independent", republished the information and retracted it a day later, claiming that the identity of two young men "completely unconnected to the case" had been published "by mistake". By then the story had already gone viral. Other accounts, such as Núcleo Nacional —a neo-Nancy far-right organisation— and Revuelta, the youth organisation promoted by Vox, also spread the faces. From X to TikTok, via Instagram.

## Six arrests, none linked to those singled out

Police arrested six young people, three of them minors, for the Burgos murder. None has any connection whatsoever with Youssef and Ahmed. The names that circulated in the hoax were invented; the photographs were not. That mix of real data and fake names is what made the hoax believable to thousands of people who shared it without checking anything.

Since then, both have received hundreds of messages with insults and threats. "I'm afraid to go out on the street and be recognised as, supposedly, a murderer," says Ahmed. Youssef laments that the insults have not stopped despite the debunking: "They keep insulting us for being racialised people, but I'm Catalan. My mother was born here and so was I." His father, of Segarro origin, has been working in Spain for two decades.

## Lawsuits "against the first and the last"

The two young men have decided to take the case to court. Youssef warns that the lawsuit will target "the first and the last" of those who spread the hoax and linked them to the murder. Ahmed wants to go after those who create hoaxes and help spread them: "They picked two people who are not going to stay silent." Youssef believes that, to fuel hatred of Arab and Muslim people, "anything goes", especially in a pre-election context, and he asks the public "not to believe everything you see on the internet".

Spreading images and personal data without consent to single someone out over a crime has legal avenues in Spain. Spain's Organic Personal Data Protection Law allows claims for the unlawful processing of personal data, and the Incivil Code provides for offences of libel and slander with publicity. The practical difficulty lies in identifying the people behind anonymous or deleted accounts, such as the one that started this case, which no longer exists. The young men's lawyers will have to trace the chain of dissemination from the first post to the accounts that amplified the hoax.

## The financial cost of a hoax

A hoax does not come free. Youssef works as a taxi driver in Manresa and Ahmed is studying a higher vocational programme in Social Integration. Both have seen their daily lives become more complicated: antiestéticar of going out, anxiety, the hundreds of messages they have to deal with. A court case involves lawyers' and court representative fees, and the process can drag on for months or years. Meanwhile, the spread of their photos continues on some accounts, requiring ongoing monitoring and takedown requests.

The case illustrates a repeating pattern: a real news story, a profile that manipulates it, an outlet that republishes it without verifying, and a network of accounts that amplifies it. Each link adds credibility to the next. For the victims, the harm does not end when the hoax is debunked. Youssef and Ahmed know this. That is why they have decided to sue. If the process succeeds, the ruling could set a precedent on how far someone can be singled out on social media without any evidence. It is worth remembering that anyone singled out in a case like this is innocent until a court says otherwise.