Mick Hartley

More on that story of the stoning of a Ukrainian girl, carried by the Daily Mail and others, which I commented on a few days back: 

The headlines were nothing short of chilling.

"Aspiring 'Miss Ukraine' Killed Under Shari'a Laws In Crimea" warned Ukrainian online newspaper "Gazeta Po-Kievski."

"Radical Islamists Murder Young Girl In Crimea," screamed Russia's "Svobodnaya Pressa."

"Muslim Girl,19, Stoned To Death After Taking Part In Beauty Contest," was the headline on Britain's "Mail Online," the "Daily Mail" website.

The circumstances around the death of Kateryna Korin, a 19-year-old Ukrainian student on the Crimean peninsula, appeared to point to a made-for-tabloid tragedy: a young beauty-pageant contestant brutally killed by her admirer, a radical Islamist who chose to stone her to death under an unforgiving interpretation of Islamic law.

There was just one small problem: They weren't true.

Law-enforcement officials in Crimea have responded to the reports of Korin's killing by saying the tragedy was an "absolutely routine crime" that involved neither stoning, Shari'a law, nor any religious motive….

Initial reports about the killing appeared on May 25 but stuck to the basic facts that Korin had been slain in a forest.

But a day later, Russian-language websites in Ukraine, including Novoross.info and Rusnovosti.ru, began giving the story a more sensational — and erroneous — twist.

Some of those reports claimed that Gaziev was a follower of radical Wahhabi teachings and that he and two other men stoned the victim to death because she violated Shari'a law by participating in a beauty contest.

Novoross.info quoted Yuri Pershikov, leader of a local Cossack youth organization called Zvezda, as a source for the story — although it is unclear how he would have specific knowledge about the crime. Pershikov told the publication that the young woman was killed by stoning, which he called a "medieval barbaric act."

Pershikov also claimed, according to novoross.info, that "Russian children are being murdered by Islamic extremists" in the neighborhood of a local madrasah, or religious school. He said that he wouldn't rule out the suspect had ties with students at the madrasah.

Two killings did in fact take place in the area in 2010, and the suspect was reportedly an ethnic Tatar. But police say the suspect suffered from mental illness. There was no evidence suggesting that the killings resulted from Islamic extremism.

Pershikov also criticized the fact that Gaziev, the ethnic Russian suspect, had been given up for adoption to a Muslim family, calling it a "social experiment."

The story then spread to media in Russia and was picked up by international outlets, including "The Daily Mail" — lending it a veneer of credibility. "The Daily Mail" did not respond to requests for comment. By June 2, the original story had been replaced to suggest "a stalker" might be responsible for the killing but continued to incorrectly identify Korin as a "glamorous Muslim beauty queen."

Finally, the story then went full-circle, with Russian and Ukrainian news outlets citing "The Daily Mail" report.