(Credit: AFP, screenshot)

Agence France-Presse defended its Jan. 25 photo against charges “in blogs and in a letter sent by the Israeli embassy in Washington to prominent US newspapers” that it staged a photo “taken in the West Bank village of Al-Dirat.”

The AFP noted that it spent “several days of thorough research” looking into  the charges but that the photo and caption were real. The caption read in part: “An injured Palestinian construction worker screams in pain after an Israeli army driver drove a trailer hooked to a tractor over his legs, as he tried to block him when Israeli forces stopped workers on January 25, 2012 from building a house in al-Dirat village.”

The letter claimed the caption was wrong and called for a correction.  According to the AFP, the Israeli embassy argued “the vehicle was in fact stationary and that…the construction worker had not been injured.” But, the AFP wrote that it saw video footage of “the construction worker being carried away on a stretcher,” that it “interviewed other media representatives present” to verify its photo’s and caption’s authenticity, and that it interviewed the construction worker in question.

Read the AFP’s defense of its photo and explanation of its verification of the photo here.

Hat Tip: Poynter