Social networks broke the news on death of a Greek who during 1999 NATO intervention on ex-Yugoslavia expressed his resistance towards that action.
Stefano Panajotis died, a man who during 1999 Serbia and Montenegro bombing organized protests, shut down airports, and stopped NATO aircrafts taking off in order not to bomb our country. GLORY TO HIM, was written on many social media posts.
The death of Stefanos Panajotis is not an issue, but is the fact that he may have never existed. Open source searches provide no results on any Stefanos Panajotis who once organized protests, shut down airports and stopped NATO aircrafts taking off from Greece.
What only exists is a man from the photo that has circulated social networks for a short period of time. It is about an Albanian MP, Vangjel Dule, who was two times a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.
Thus, the living man was buried under the name of a man who does not exist.
A man, who found himself in the photos as a part of the posts about Stefan Panajotis, is actually Vangjel Dule, member of the Albanian Parliament and the President of Human Rights Unity Party that protects rights of Greek minorities in Albania.
He was born in 1968 in the Albanian town of Gjirokastra. Since 2002 he has been acting as the President of Human Rights Unity Party. He graduated English language at the University in Tirana. From 2002 to 2006, as well as from 2007 to 2010, he was a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.
This fake news was, among others, shared by Serbian extreme far-right parties and movements, as well as by the Montenegrin movement Alternativa Crna Gora.
Even though a fabricated information is in question, the fact is that up until now, more than 8,000 people have already shared the original post from a Facebook account of Саша Петровић (Sasa Petrovic).
