Research paper on systemic bias retratced despite going through journal papers

[Smeulders]

You've managed to find their retraction statement. It quite clearly explains why their thinking changed. They believe they did a solid technical analysis. Later on they realized their results were easily misinterpreted. As they didn't want to muddy the waters of public debate they retracted the paper. People are allowed to change their opinions as more information comes in you know. In fact, that is what makes for a good scientist.

Of course, I strongly suspect you know all of the above, but are ignoring it to so you can imply something nefarious is happening.