Since we ran the story last night showing those messages which supposedly originate from a member of a police special unit, a number of viewers have led us to these apps which make it very easy to perpetuate a fraud to discredit someone, by making it appear that they sent text messages which they never did.

With these apps, an imaginary sender's phone number appears to send messages that he or she did not. From there, it is just a simple matter of taking screenshots of this bogus message thread, then spreading it about, and the mischief maker can then sit back and quietly watch the damage unfold.

And the Police Press Office is of a similar view that those messages are fake. This evening, following the wide circulation of those messages, the press office released a statement saying, quote, "Contrary to what is being circulated on social media; police investigation has unearthed NO evidence that his death was a "state- ordered" execution."