Fact review. Did the Philippine court issue an arrest warrant on behalf of Bill Gates for “premeditated murder”?

Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, is regular target of misinformation on social networks, specifically for his role in financing the production of vaccines against Covid-19 through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. More than three years after the start of the pandemic, the billionaire is now the target of new complaints. Various social media posts suggest that a warrant was issued in the name of Bill Gates by a Philippine courtfollowing an investigation into how vaccination was implemented in the country.

in these publicationsA Philippine court is said to have issued an international arrest warrant for Bill Gates for “premeditated murder”, since deaths in the country “increased after the vaccination campaign.” One of the authors even says that the judge said that the billionaire is “wanted for links to hundreds of thousands of deaths”. Another post on this topic reveals that The Philippines “already banned Gates from entering the country in 2016” and now “Interpol has been asked to transmit the arrest warrant as a red alert to other police forces” around the world, a request that, according to the author of the mail“So far no response has been made.”

The posts are often accompanied by links to alleged news about this case. One of them is published by the National Tribune page —a Brazilian website known for spreading misinformation— and details that the arrest warrant issued by the “Manila Atrocious Crimes Court”, “by virtue of article 248 of the reformed criminal code that provides for a minimum prison sentence of 20 years and one day.” It is also mentioned that the arrest warrant was “received with an injunction issued by the Gates Foundation”, that is, a court order that “prevents average to report” this case.

But let’s go in parts. Doing a search on the Philippine Supreme Court page of the alleged court that issued the arrest warrant, we noticed that this the institution doesn’t even exist. Likewise, in the list of courts in the country, there does not seem to be any judicial body whose description is comparable to a “Heinous Crimes Court”let alone in the capital, Manila.

Contacted by the observer, the Supreme Court of the Philippines confirms that “There is no pending case” fall on Bill Gates, nor “no arrest warrant issued” against the founder of Microsoft “in the courts of the cities of Manila, Quezon City, Makati, Pasig, Pasay, Parañaque, Las Piñas, Muntinlupa, Marikina, Malabon, Taguig, Valenzuela and Navotas.” In the response sent to the Observer, the Supreme Court also refers to a “Alleged” Atrocious Crimes Courtwhich implies that it is an invented organization.

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It is true, however, that heinous crime courts have existed in the Philippines but was abolished in 2004 by the Supreme Court. According to the Thirteenth Congress of the Republic of the Philippines, the decision was made, in part, due to safety concerns with judges who, “being easily identifiable”, became “easy victims for the vindictive defendants”. These crimes are now tried by regional courts.

The Covid-19 vaccination process in the Philippines began in March 2021, the Philippine state news agency revealed. Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation was not directly involved in the distribution of vaccines in Philippine territory. However, he helped indirectly by supporting GAVI, the Global Vaccine Alliance, which is responsible for distributing vaccines in almost a hundred of the most disadvantaged countries, including the Philippines.

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Regarding the number of deaths in the Philippines, it is not possible to know how many were directly caused by vaccination against Covid-19. However, a study published in The Lancet in 2022 estimates that vaccines have saved more than 14 million livesAll over the world.

It should also be noted that the news of the alleged arrest warrant issued against Bill Gates has already been released. denied by several international fact-checkerssuch as those of Reuters, AFP and Associated Press.

Conclusion

The post is false. It is not true that Bill Gates was the subject of an arrest warrant issued by the Supreme Court of the Philippines. The information was denied to the Observer by the court itself. Nor is there a court exclusively dedicated to atrocious crimes in the country, contrary to what the publication suggests.

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FAKE: content claims are a mix of accurate and inaccurate facts or the main claim is misleading or incomplete.

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