Bellingcat: Truth in a Post-Truth World (2018) - full transcript

"Truth does not belong to the order of power,
but shares an original affinity with freedom."

What is all of this?
A bus? A plane? A helicopter?

Fuck, people.

- Shit, there's someone's leg. See that?
- It's a woman.

A woman.

Don't look. Don't look.

What the hell was that?
Was it a female pilot or what?

Shit, I don't understand any of this.

Yesterday,
disregarding all the rules of war...

they carried out a provocative
terrorist attack on a civilian plane

a regular plane that was on the way
from Amsterdam to Malaysia.



I'm asking all of you to step aside,
behind that bus.

What are you filming?

Either you step away,
or I will talk to you in a different way.

BELLINGCAT

I live on the outskirts of Berlin,
in a terraced house.

I live here with my daughter.

I'm a single parent
and she's severely handicapped

which is why it's not possible for me
to take on a job away from home.

I mainly work from my home
and thus have time for Bellingcat.

The problem at the time was that,
on the Russian side

we had discovered a convoy
with Buk rocket launchers

that could be seen on several videos.

We could locate this convoy,

as it was moving from its base in Kursk
to the Ukrainian border.



Secondly, we received pictures
of a Buk rocket launcher in Donetsk.

The question was then
whether there was a link

between this convoy and
that Buk rocket launcher in Donetsk.

One Buk rocket launcher in the Russian
convoy stood out right away

you can see it here,

where the numbers or digits
are partly illegible and painted over.

When you see these Buks for the first time,
they all look similar,

but just as with cars, they get
dented and scratched, and so on,

and they then become unique.
The same goes for a Buk rocket launcher.

This software constructs a 3D model
based on the video images.

This model can then be used.

to place yourself in this environment
through the use of virtual reality.

and see everything in 3D.

I was born in East Berlin
and I considered everything normal.

What work did I do in the DDR?

Everything?

During the last ten years,
before the Wall came down

I did office work
for the East German secret service.

I did analytical work there.

I evaluated and collated information.

Looking back,
what I found most oppressive

was that you couldn't discuss
your work with anyone.

The secret service wanted to know
what people thought about the state.

They wanted to know people's attitudes.
That was their main task.

What Bellingcat does,
has nothing to do with that.

We want to know
what events have taken place.

What has happened in crisis areas,
where reporters can't go.

And we want to make it public,
and not keep it secret.

That is the big difference.

Suppose I place my laptop here.

That way I can show the others
what my office looks like today.

During the past year, I've been
in a different country every week

for Bellingcat.

Bellingcat's digital walls
Can be set up anywhere

whether it's here
on this hotel roof in Amman

or in the jungle of Kenya,
or at a very large lake in Kyrgyzstan.

It can be done anywhere,
and that's pretty cool.

Many Bellingcat members have a family,
a wife and children

which makes it more difficult
to make long journeys

to places like Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon
Kyrgyzstan or Colombia.

There has been an enormous
information revolution.

This war of information and access to it
have brought about great changes.

Take the most recent Gaza War
as an example.

The Israeli army had neat infographics,
showing where they had bombed.

On the opposite side there were
many people on the Gaza Strip

who had phones
and Internet connections

and in a way had their own CNN
in their hands.

They told us what was happening, that
bombs were dropping and people dying.

It has set many things in motion.
The monopoly on information is shifting.

That's why I think
that the research method we're using

to verify and analyse all those materials
as if they're pieces of a puzzle

becomes increasingly important,
because the more people do it

the more facts will be uncovered.

Right now, I'm in a very large resort
near the Dead Sea, in Jordan.

I'm here for the tenth annual conference
of ARIJ

which is a network
of investigative journalists

throughout the Arabic-speaking world.

I've been invited to do a workshop and
a presentation about the work we do.

That's really cool because
there are a lot of people here

I think it's the next one.

A lot of people from the Middle East,
from Yemen to Libya, from Egypt to Iraq.

Good morning, my name is
Christiaan Triebert from the Netherlands.

I don't speak Arabic.

I hope to be able to speak it in the future.
But as for now...

On 30 October 2016, at 4:11 p.m.

this is the first tweet I can find
about a car bomb in Iraq.

It often goes like this.
There's a link to Facebook.

And then more people see it,
it makes the news.

People talk about it, a car bomb
that resulted in the death of 13 victims.

We see, for example, Reuters
picking this up. Reuters says:

If something is on the wire,
Reuters, Associated Press

the international media will pick it up.
Here we have a New York Times article:

It's a solid story. We have
medical sources, IS claimed the attack.

International journalists
have been to the location

and seen there has been a car bomb.
There's still an exhaust lying there.

People are still looking at it.

This shows how important,
but also difficult, fact checking is.

A day later
this suddenly appeared on the internet.

So, this car explodes
and there's no one nearby.

Now look at what happens.

These people are now taken away

from the place where
that car bomb exploded.

Maybe they're even taken
to the hospital. It's bizarre.

I spent days working on this.
Imagine doing that for every car bomb.

This is something within journalism
for which there is no time.

I fully understand it has to go
on the wire right away.

It is reported in Baghdad
and so you want it on the news

or at least,
you want to show it happened.

It's worthwhile to dig some further
and ask yourself: What is this?

Bellingcat has blamed Russia many times
for bombing Syrian civilians

although this was officially denied
by our Ministry of Defense.

This way Higgins, armchair general
and kitchen expert on everything

the former video gamer

is using Google Earth to hand out
advice of cosmic importance.

In 2015,
there was an anonymous e-mail

to all those I work with,
my business partners, so to say.

And this e-mail stated
that I was lying and cheating.

I was said to have financial problems
and many other things that weren't true.

When you're confronted
with such a thing... I was shocked.

At the same time,
I don't worry about my safety.

I don't think they'll go that far.
It would be useless.

Bellingcat is now so big that it
doesn't matter if I'm involved or not.

Australian Federal Police Commander

- Hello.
- Yes, good morning.

- Andrey Ivanovich.
- Hello, Fyodor Nikolayevich,

- It's Nikolay Fyodorovich. Hi there.
- Nice to hear you.

- What is your profession at this moment?
- I'm a journalist.

A journalist? For which organisation?

Right now, it's for
the military channel 'The Star'.

- I don't get it.
- For the military channel 'The Star'.

Channel 'The Star'. I see.

- I'm in Moscow at the moment.
- In Moscow. I understand.

- Do you have your professional ID card?
- Of course.

This conversation bears
a full set of characteristics.

I believe the length
and spacing are very good.

- The spacing is 2.
- That's good.

- It's highly probable that it's his voice.
- Spacing is two.

No, of course it wasn't.

We're working on a big investigation
into Mahmoud al-Werfalli.

a Libyan commander.

They say things as if they are
the best of creatures

but they are passing right through
the Islam like an arrow.

Werfalli is accused by the ICC
of extrajudicial killings

in and around the city of Benghazi
in Libya.

- God is greater.
- He who deceived you, has killed you.

- Satan had deceived him.
- What a disaster. God is greater.

- He who deceived you, has killed you.
- A crusader.

Werfalli mostly fights
in and around Benghazi

where he is fighting jihadist groups.

He is known for having killed
many jihadist fighters.

That's the reason he is wanted
by the ICC in The Hague.

It's about seven specific incidents

in which he orders or performs
the execution of persons

without being preceded
by any legal process.

On 15 August 2017 the International
Criminal Court in The Hague

issued a warrant for his arrest.

It's really bizarre.

The arrest warrant was issued
by the ICC in August 2017.

There was an immediate reply
from the Libyan National Army:

We'll make sure he's taken into custody
and will investigate what has happened.

That didn't happen. In fact, activists
reported he was involved with incidents.

This went on for weeks
and then months.

It was difficult to verify,
many unverified messages

until, at one point,
he executed another ten men on video.

You see him with a rifle in his left hand,
shooting those people one by one.

If Werfalli does get arrested, he'll be
the first person we have investigated

who would then be brought to justice.

We're starting to get worried
about Timmi.

It happens regularly that some team
members aren't on Slack

because they're busy, and Timmi
makes lots of visualisations, of course.

But, we haven't heard from him in
a long time, and we can't reach him.

And if even Eliot gets worried...

I've tried to call him with Hadi.

He's not answering his phone.
So, that certainly is...

The reason
the Boeing crashed in Ukraine

could've been a rocket and gunfire
from an Ukrainian Su-25 fighter jet.

An anonymous source from
Russian aviation told Interfax

that the Ukrainian missiles may have
been meant for Vladimir Putin's plane.

The Russian Air Force One has crossed
with the Malaysian Boeing at one point

The JIT has carefully examined
all images from 17 and 18 July 2014

showing the Buk-TELAR

and has concluded that this Buk-TELAR
has many unique characteristics.

After extensive and labour-intensive
research, involving many Buk-TELARs

The JIT has come to the conclusion that the
Buk-TELAR that shot down flight MH17

belongs to the
53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade

also known as the 53rd Kursk Brigade
of the Russian Federation.

The JIT conducts
its own independent investigation

and the conclusion we draw
from that investigation

must be based on legitimate
and convincing evidence

that can stand up in a court room.

We noticed Bellingcat from
the very start of our investigation.

We couldn't visit the crime scene

but in the first days tapped
conversations appeared on the Internet.

Normally, civilians don't know about
this, but they were out on the Internet.

There were images there, so the Internet
was very important from the very start.

At first, we were like:
What's going on here?

We're used to knowing more
than the public.

And so we can investigate
in a relatively quiet way.

Now, there were investigators
from all around the world

and who quite quickly came up
with a possible scenario.

That took some getting used to.

But we quickly reacted to that, saying:
This is an opportunity, not a threat.

We also had to go on the Internet

and look very seriously
at what they brought to the table.

In a short time period, we made
the shift from initial hesitation

to deciding that this was part
of our investigation.

Amateurs or not, they're good
at gathering information.

But when they start to publish names,
involving such a serious case

they take on quite a responsibility.
We've said this to them repeatedly.

Before you accuse someone
of a role in this whole story

you need to be sure
that you're able to prove it.

- Good luck.
- Thanks.

I don't think I would've been here
if it weren't for Bellingcat.

It feels as if Bellingcat is family now.

We give each other strength
through the investigations we do.

Sometimes as a big group,
sometimes as individuals

but always as a collective.
We've learned so much from each other.

We've given each other so much
strength, energy and trust

and created a platform together.

I wouldn't have been at The New York
Times if it wasn't for Bellingcat.

What I do at The New York Times,
is applying the Bellingcat method

doing open source investigations
into a very wide range of subjects.

At Bellingcat, everything is possible.
We can investigate anything we want to.

At The New York Times I'm learning
how to make it accessible

for a large audience.
You really zoom in, like we do at Bellingcat.

What's nice, is that there we can publish
a report and put in everything we found.

All the details and side steps
that are part of that investigation.

At The New York Times
you zoom in and then out again.

You leave out a lot of details
in the final video or article

because it has to appeal
to a larger audience.

Imagine, you're a citizen
of your country.

Suddenly, there's this man
who betrays his own country.

How would you, or any representative
of any country sitting here, view him?

He's simply a scumbag
and that's all there is to it.

I was in a coma for 20 days.
I suffered from meningitis.

I slowly woke up again
and at first didn't know where I was.

And only thanks to the support
of my family and my other daughter

I slowly started to get better again.

In total, I spent three months in the
hospital before I was released again.

Since its start in 2014 Bellingcat
has grown from a couple of volunteers

to an investigation team with
10 full-time staff members

and dozens of people contributing
to the investigations.

The team has over 1000.000 followers
on Twitter and their website

is gaining more traction with
every case they work on.

By regularly giving workshops
and organizing events,

they have already trained
hundreds of professionals

and citizens Bellingcat's methods.

Subtitles ripped by gooz
karagarga, 2020