In an earlier post Eugene Volokh demands a fatwa against anyone bearing false witness in the Danish cartoon flap. As detailed below and elsewhere, at least one of the supposed "cartoons" is a hoax.

Gateway Pundit points out that the Danish clerics who spread the 15 Muhammed cartoons have been awfully evasive about where they got the three extra cartoons that had never been published by Jyllands-Posten or media in any country, at least before the dispute arose:

The first of the three additional pictures, which are of poor quality, shows Muhammad as a pedophile demon.

The second shows Muhammed with a pig snout.

The third depicts a praying Muslim being raped by a dog.

BBC World also aired a story showing one of the three non-published images, on 2006-01-30, and wrongly claimed it had been published in Jyllands-Posten.

On the tour, the group claimed to represent 21 different Muslim organisations in Denmark, although many of these groups have disclaimed any connection.

Akhmad Akkari, spokesman of the Danish Muslim organisations which organised the tour, explained that the three drawings had been added to "give an insight in how hateful the atmosphere in Denmark is towards Muslims."

Akkari claimed he does not know the origin of the three pictures. He said they had been sent anonymously to Danish Muslims. However, when Ekstra Bladet asked if it could talk to these Muslims, Akkari refused to reveal their identity. These images had however never been published in Jyllands-Posten.

The second extra "cartoon," supposedly showing Muhammed with a pig snout is a crude forgery, not even a picture of Muhammed at all. As NeanderNews revealed (tip to Powerline), it is:

a photo of Jacques Barrot, a pig squealing contestant at the French Pig-Squealing Championships in Trie-sur-Baise's annual festival. NeanderNews discovered this photo, taken by Bob Edme of AP, posted on an August 15, 2005 AP story seen here on MSNBC's website.

The photo of Barrot in a pig snout appears merely to have been photoshopped with a black and white screen to make it appear to be a cartoon.

Original AP photo (click to enlarge):

Fake "cartoon" (click to enlarge):

I wish there were some way of holding the perpetrators of this fraud responsible. Did the Danish clerics organize the fraud themselves, or were they duped? And how clear were they during their tour that the three most offensive cartoons had never been published?