Special security measures in place for Algerian man wrongly identified as Dublin stab suspect

Gardaí have expressed deep concern after a photograph and other details of an innocent man were shared on social media, wrongly claiming that he is the suspect for last Thursday’s stabbing attack outside a Dublin school, which left three children and a creche worker injured.

It followed the publication of an article by online news outlet Gript, which has since removed the story, which blamed the wrong man for the stabbing after gardaí contacted the outlet.

Some of the social media posts, which surfaced overnight, included an image of an individual and referenced details from a court case purporting to involve the stabbing suspect, but which was from a case involving an entirely different individual.

However, the man named in the social media posts has no involvement in the shocking incident last week.

The suspect for the attack, an Algerian national with Irish citizenship, remains in hospital and is yet to be arrested. He is expected to be questioned before the end of this week, once he is deemed medically fit.

The online posts have been shared thousands of times since going up overnight.

One of the accounts, which shared the details of the wrong person, is linked to a man currently under investigation by detectives as part of the inquiry into the organising of the violent scenes in Dublin last week.

Gardaí said they have made contact with Gript.

The Gript article did not name the falsely identified Algerian but revealed details of his immigration case ruling, which is available on legal sites, and in which he is named.

It allowed right-wing agitators to identify the Algerian man, who was the plaintiff in the asylum case and share his image and details of his work for an Irish company. His photograph was sourced from an interview he gave about homeless services to a newspaper.

When contacted about the Gript article, a garda spokesman told the Irish Independent: “This article is highly inaccurate.

“The individual referenced in the article is not a person of interest in the investigation into the knife attack of last Thursday.

“An Garda Síochána has contacted the online news outlet and the outlet has agreed to remove the article.

“The online news outlet did not contact the Garda Press Office before publication.

“An Garda Síochána is aware of some social media posts resulting from the article that purport to identify the individual and has put in place measures to ensure the safety of the individual.”

Gript’s original tweet promoting the story published at 5pm yesterday has been viewed over 755,000 times on X, formerly Twitter.

John McGuirk, Gript’s editor told the Irish Independent that as of 10.40am this morning, he had received no contact from the Garda about the article.

However, this was contradicted in a later statement on his outlet’s website, which said gardaí had contacted the publication at 9am today.

He said the article was based on garda and official sources.

“We did not contact the garda press office about this as its policy is not to comment on named individuals,” he said.

McGuirk said this now “feels like a bit of a rat-f**king”, a term used to describe dirty tricks or deliberate sabotage.

The details in the Gript story allowed some right-wing agitators to identify the Algerian man who was the plaintiff in the asylum case and share his image and details of his work for an Irish company. His photograph was sourced from a an interview he gave about homeless services to a newspaper.

Right-wing websites have since labelled staff working for an NGO (non-governmental body) that had helped the wrongly identified Algerian man in his immigration case as “traitors” and “accessories to murder”.

The five-year-old girl who was critically injured in last Thursday’s stabbing attack remains gravely ill in hospital this morning.

The only suspect in the case, a 49-year-old Algerian man also remains in hospital where he is being treated for head injuries.

However, it is understood that his condition is improving and he may be medically fit to be arrested for questioning before the end of this week.

In a statement today Gript said: “This morning, just after 9am, more than 17 hours after the story that appeared on this page on Gript.ie was published – and after media outlets elsewhere had first been informed – the Garda Press Office contacted Gript to say that the unnamed person referred to in the story that appeared at this link yesterday, is not, in fact, a person of interest in the events of last Thursday.

“Gript Media’s original reporting was sourced from a member of An Garda Síochána.

“It was further cross-checked against publicly available records, and while the name of the suspect was not reported, that name was put to a senior official on the basis of an informal “cross-check” before publication.

“Gript Media, like other media outlets, has a firm policy of never naming any individual suspected in relation to a criminal act until such time as that person has been charged with a crime, and confirming that there are no reporting restrictions in place. In this case, we kept to that policy, while cross-checking our details with our sources in the usual way.

“We are investigating the circumstances of this error, including giving due consideration to the question of whether this media outlet was deliberately deceived by a senior official. If we determine that to have been the case, then our obligation to protect the anonymity of those sources will be considered forfeit.”