German TV presenter Jan Bohermann, host of the satirical program “Neo magazin Royale” on state ZDF TV, admitted faking a controversial video showing Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis sticking up his middle finger to Germany. The host said that he had been waiting for someone to ask him if he had faked the video after the Greek minister had vehemently contested its authenticity, however nobody had questioned him.

Bohermann detailed how the production team had doctored the video to show what German’s call the “stinkefinger” in a video showing Varoufakis speaking at a 2013 event in Zagreb before he became Greece’s finance minister.

When the video was shown on the Guenther Jauch weekly talk show on Germany’s ARD channel on Sunday, Varoufakis insisted that the video had been “doctored”. Nonetheless, digital experts insisted that there had been no manipulation in the video.

After a few days of debate with most digital experts accusing Greece’s Finance Minister of lying before millions of Germans, Bohermann admitted that his team had doctored the footage in late February and he described that shadows had been manipulated to make the changes appear more realistic.

The fake: