Malaysian student who boasted of earning Nasa scholarship now says he was scammed
- Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin was one of many Malaysians to congratulate Muhammad Azhar Ali after he tweeted about his scholarship
- But after people started to investigate discrepancies, the student said he was scammed, warning others to check for authenticity before posting such news
This comes after Muhammad Azhar Ali, a self-described astrophile, received congratulatory messages from Malaysians in response to his April 30 tweet, which included screenshots of a letter of offer supposedly sent by a Nasa representative.
Other screenshots appended to the tweet showed that Azhar had supposedly come in the top 1 per cent among over 3.6 million participants in the US space agency’s Artemis challenge. Another screenshot showed Azhar supposedly listed on the Nasa site as a “citizen scientist”.
In the days that followed, Malaysia’s Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin retweeted Azhar’s post with a congratulatory message.
Malaysia’s Minister of Higher Education Noraini Ahmad and Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation Khairy Jamaluddin also congratulated him.
Azhar, whose Twitter profile states his age as 20, was even featured on TV for doing Malaysia proud.
But unlike the ministers and media outlets, members of the online community spotted loopholes in Azhar’s story and a number of them decided to fact-check his claims.
Among the many discrepancies raised was that Azhar’s name could not be found on Nasa’s online listing of citizen scientists as his screenshot had implied.
