The name and personal information of well-known British Muslim preacher, Hamza Tzortzis was found in leaked database of the Ashley Madison website (a dating agency for extra-marital affairs).
In August 2015, Tzortzis denied that he opened the account (according to Breitbart):
It has come to my attention that my details are on the Ashley Madison data leak. This includes my name, address, and bank card details.
This is an obvious case of fraud. My email address (this website doesn’t verify emails, and all the relevant emails went to junk) can be found online and so can my address, as it is linked to my business account, which is registered online. My date of birth is known from either previous lectures or Facebook. These types of online attacks are not uncommon, for example in the past year there have been multiple attempts to access my emails.
(While this status has since been taken down from his Facebook page, he maintains his innocence.)
One commenter was critical of the claim:
“So Hamza, you are claiming that some guy knew all of your private information and wanted to screw with you so he created a fake account on Ashley Madison. This guy then paid hundreds of dollars to maintain the account for 9 months. This account was then used to make transactions at locations where you were also present at the time. Then the ultimate plan was to hack the Ashley Madison database and release 40 million users so you could be exposed. Am I getting this right?”
A defense of Hamza was made at 5Pillars, concluding that this was probably a case of identity fraud.
My questions are actually related to the 5Pillars point-by-point breakdown:
- Were email addresses verified by Ashley Madison? (See point 3)
- Was there any activity from that account like chatting/messaging? (See points 2, 5, 14)
