Fact Check: Is Johnny Somali sentenced to five years in jail? Current status explored

Controversial Kick streamer Johnny Somali became the talk of the town after social media reports suggested he was sentenced to five years in Japanese prison. The content creator made headlines earlier this month (on October 12, 2023) when he was re-arrested for allegedly hosting an "unauthorized livestream" inside a restaurant in Tokyo.

According to the Sankei News, the Osaka Prefectural Police's South Police Station has been investigating Johnny Somali's case. Labeling him a "nuisance online distributor," Sankei News reported:

"On Sunday, they decided to arrest him again on suspicion of forcibly obstructing business operations for causing a nuisance by broadcasting a live stream without permission at a restaurant in Osaka city. According to investigators, Khalid is suspected of disrupting the business of restaurants in Osaka by filming them and distributing the videos on the Internet."

Earlier today, October 25, 2023, posts claiming that the Kick streamer had been sentenced to five years in prison went viral on platforms such as Reddit and X (formerly Twitter).

At the time of writing, no official sources had confirmed that Johnny Somali would be facing a five-year prison sentence. According to X user @TzGnis, the 24-year-old was detained on his second charge. They added:

"This is false news. Johnny Somali is still detained on his second charge. Police will keep re-arresting him and he'll serve 23 days (of) detainment for each charge. Once they're done stacking charges he'll be prosecuted in front of a judge. Steve was heading in that direction too."

X user @TzGnis' response to the claims of Somali's arrest (Image via X)

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"No trace of this on Japanese media" - Netizens respond to viral claims of Johnny Somali being sentenced to five years in jail

The Kick streamer's update was the top post on the r/WorldNews subreddit, garnering over 3,000 upvotes:

Claims of the Kick streamer's arrest were the top post on the r/WorldNews subreddit (Image via Reddit)

One Redditor claimed to have looked for this information on Tokyo's official subreddit and commented that Johnny Somali was under pre-detention:

Redditors provide information regarding the arrest claims (Image via r/WorldNews)

Redditor u/ashes-of-arakusa claimed to be a Japanese resident, stating that there was "no trace" of Somali's arrest in the media. They added:

"Japan resident here. It's fake. No trace of this on Japanese media. He only got arrested about a month ago, it’s not that fast of a process."

The supposed Japanese resident on the subreddit provides information (Image via r/WorldNews)

Here are some more comments from the subreddit:

Some more comments (Image via r/WorldNews)

Here's what the community on X had to say about this:

Netizens on X commenting on the streamer's report (Image via @FearedBuck/X)

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Johnny Somali rose to prominence this year after videos of him repeatedly making racist remarks about Japanese people went viral. Readers interested in learning about his most controversial moments can do so by clicking here.