Fact Check: Image of Hilary Clinton meeting Osama Bin Laden is fake

Hyderabad: An image of former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton shaking hands with late al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden has gone viral.

Many social media users are sharing this picture with the text "Remember this picture when you go to vote". The picture doing rounds against the backdrop of upcoming US elections. This image had surfaced many times, especially during the poll time.

Click here and here to view the claims.

FACT CHECK:

The claim that Hillary Clinton was shaking hands with Osama bin Laden is false as the image is morphed.

We found the original image on a website called Freaking News which is a News Oriented Photoshop contest website that held a Photoshop contest in 2007. The original image showed Indian musician Shubhashish Mukherjee with Clinton in May 2004 at the annual dinner of Asia Society at the Washington Centre.

In the contest, participants were asked to photoshop anything connected to then Senator Hillary Clinton who was running for President for the United States. There were a total of 23 entries for this competition. One such participant in the contest photoshopped the original image and added Osama Bin Laden's face on top of Shubhashish Mukherjee's face, with the tagline, "Going for the terrorist vote".

This image then became viral on the internet and was passed off with different claims for several years which has been debunked by many news organisations including the BBC and the SNOPES almost every year.

Therefore, with the above information it is clear that the claim is false as the picture has been morphed.