On February 26, a frequent disseminator of disinformation, lawyer Irakli Zakareishvili, posted on Facebook, claiming that the new FBI Director Kash Patel is revealing the reason behind the assassination of Japan’s former Prime Minister. Specifically, an uploaded photo shows a post from an X account, “Kash Patel News,” stating that the Japanese Prime Minister was killed because he did not follow the World Economic Forum’s orders; he refused to mandate COVID-19 vaccines, sent 1.6 million doses back, and gave citizens “ivermectin.”
The X account that Zakareishvili refers to is not Kash Patel’s real account. Moreover, there are factual inaccuracies in the claim itself, as the murdered Prime Minister Shinzo Abe resigned from his position in September 2020, at which time only Chinese and Russian vaccines were licensed, and they were used only in a limited way in China. Additionally, the claim that he gave the population “ivermectin” to fight COVID-19 is false.
In the post, Irakli Zakareishvili claims that FBI Director Kash Patel is spreading information about the assassination of the Japanese prime minister. In reality, the post shown in the photo and the linked X post author is not Patel. It is unclear who manages the account, but its description reads that it is a fan account of Kash Patel. The real X account of the FBI Director is named Kash Patel, where such information has not been shared.
The information shared by the X account contains numerous factual errors. First, the former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who was assassinated on July 8, 2022, resigned from office in September 2020. At that time, no country in the world had authorized the widespread vaccination against COVID-19. Moreover, at that time, only two Chinese and one Russian vaccine were licensed. Of these, by December 2020, only China allowed the use of its vaccine for high-risk populations, and by December 15, 4.5 million doses were administered. However, it was not until the end of the year that the Chinese government issued a directive for the widespread use of these vaccines. On December 8, 2020, the United Kingdom became the first country to begin mass vaccinations with fully tested vaccines, and Japan joined these countries later, in February 2021. Therefore, it is impossible that Shinzo Abe refused to use vaccines that were in the research stage and were not available for mass vaccination during his time in office.
In the posts that have been circulated, it is also claimed that Shinzo Abe returned 1.6 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines. It should be noted that Japan did indeed refuse the use of 1.6 million doses of the Moderna vaccine because they were found to be contaminated. However, this incident occurred in 2021, when Shinzo Abe no longer held office.
It is also important to emphasize that the claim shared by the X account is not new. Identical information was first spread just days after Shinzo Abe’s assassination, and it was fact-checked by the Associated Press, which determined that Shinzo Abe could not have influenced the issue, as he had already resigned before the vaccination began. Additionally, the article mentions that Japan did not offer “ivermectin,” a drug for fighting parasites, as a COVID-19 treatment for the population.
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