A picture shows Jeremy Corbyn shaking hands with Tariq Mahmood, who has served a prison sentence for ballot rigging.
The photo is genuine and shows the two shaking hands during 2019 the Peterborough by-election. Mr Mahmood was jailed in 2008 for electoral fraud. Police found no electoral fraud offences were committed in the 2019 by-election.
A viral post on Facebook claims to show a photograph of Jeremy Corbyn during the 2019 Peterborough by-election shaking hands with Tariq Mahmood who was jailed in 2008 for electoral fraud.
The picture is genuine and an original version was also posted on Mr Mahmood’s personal Facebook profile. Jeremy Corbyn has also tweeted a video featuring himself, by-election candidate Lisa Forbes and Mr Mahmood (as well as other local campaigners and members of the public) on the same day.
Labour won the by-election by 683 votes after the former Labour MP Fiona Onasanya was ousted from her seat after a successful recall petition. Ms Onasanya was sentenced in January for perverting the course of justice after lying to the courts over a speeding ticket . She served four weeks in prison of a three month sentence.
Following the 2019 by-election, the Brexit Party, which came second, called for an investigation into rumours of alleged electoral fraud. It was claimed that Mr Mahmood acted as an electoral agent for Labour, a claim which the party denied.
Cambridgeshire police investigated five allegations of electoral fraud and found that no offences had been committed.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as true as the image is genuine and the claim that Mahmood was convicted of ballot rigging is accurate.
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