đ Bent as a dog's hind leg.
It has since emerged the hour-long filmâs narrator â Abdullah Al-Yazouri, 14 â is the son of Ayman Alyazouri, who is deputy minister of agriculture in the Hamas-run government.
The BBC issued an apology on Wednesday night, claiming it âhad not been informedâ of the connection by the documentaryâs producers before it was broadcast. âWe followed all of our usual compliance procedures in the making of this film, but we had not been informed of this information by the independent producers when we complied and then broadcast the finished film,â a spokesman said. Danny Cohen, the former controller of BBC Television, said the corporation had failed to do âbasic journalistic checksâ and accused it of âtrying to throw the producer of the documentary under the busâ.
âYesterday the BBC claimed they had âfull editorial controlâ,â he said. âToday it is someone elseâs fault. âThe serious questions asked of the BBC remain unanswered: why did our national broadcaster fail to carry out the basic journalistic checks needed to ensure that propaganda from the terrorists of Hamas was not broadcast in primetime?â
The apology came a day after the BBC defended the hour-long film, saying it had full editorial control over the content and that the childrenâs parents had no editorial input.
In the documentary, the boyâs background was not revealed to viewers and it is not clear if the film crew were aware of his links to Hamas.
The corporation has now added a disclaimer to the documentary, which admits the Hamas link but continues to insist the documentary makers had âfull editorial controlâ.
