Spanish lawmaker’s photo used for bin Laden poster
The Spanish state requires an explanation from the United States and the FBI withdraw the picture from their website.
Photos From HERE English Translation
The New Bin Laden
AP – This digitally enhanced image taken from the U.S. Department of State’s web site rewardsforjustice.net, …
By HAROLD HECKLE
MADRID – A Spanish lawmaker was horrified to find out the FBI used his photograph as part of a digitally enhanced image showing what Osama bin Laden might look like today, he said Saturday, calling into question the crime-fighting agency’s credibility in battling terrorism.
Gaspar Llamazares of the United Left party said he would no longer feel safe traveling to the United States after his hair and facial wrinkles were taken from the Internet and appeared on a wanted poster updating the U.S. government’s 1998 photo of the al-Qaida leader.
“I was surprised and angered because it’s the most shameless use of a real person to make up the image of a terrorist,” Llamazares said at a news conference Saturday. “It’s almost like out of a comedy if it didn’t deal with matters as serious as bin Laden and citizens’ security.”
The FBI said in a statement Saturday that it was aware of the similarities between their age-progressed image “and that of an existing photograph of a Spanish public official.”
“The forensic artist was unable to find suitable features among the reference photographs and obtained those features, in part, from a photograph he found on the Internet,” the statement sent to The Associated Press said.
The photo appeared on a U.S. State Department Web site rewardsforjustice.net, where a reward of up to $25 million is offered for bin Laden, wanted in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks and the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya. The FBI said the photo of bin Laden will be removed from the Web site.
Llamazares said he planned to ask the U.S. government for an explanation and reserved the right to take legal action.
The State Department told a reporter to call back Tuesday after the U.S. federal Martin Luther King Day holiday on Monday.
Llamazares said he couldn’t believe it when he was first told about the similarity, but he quickly realized the seriousness of the situation.
The 52-year-old politician said he would not feel safe traveling in the U.S. now, because many airports use biometrics technology that compares the physical characteristics of travelers to passport or other photographs.
“I have no similarity, physically or ideologically, to the terrorist bin Laden,” he said.
They do share on characteristic — both are 52.
Jose Morales, spokesman for Llamazares’ party, told the Associated Press that no one in Spain had any idea that important security computer images such as the retouched bin Laden photo were built up from photographs of real people. Llamazares, the former leader of his party, was elected to Spain’s parliament in 2000.
“A technician has cut and paste in Photoshop a photograph he found out there on the Internet, and you don’t have to be in Quantico — the agency’s Virginia training facility — to do that,” Morales told the AP.
Llamazares said it was worrying to see elite security services like the FBI resorting to such sloppy techniques, especially in the light of recent security alerts like the attempted Christmas Day bombing of a Detroit-bound airplane.
“It might provoke mirth, but it demonstrates that what we’re seeing from security services isn’t exactly recommendable,” he said.
Bin Laden is believed to be hiding in the lawless Pakistan frontier bordering Afghanistan. His exact whereabouts have been unknown since late 2001, when he and some bodyguards slipped out of the Tora Bora mountains, evading air strikes, U.S. special forces and Afghan militias.
The U.S. State Department Web site shows the photos and bounty on bin Laden and 41 others wanted for terrorism.
Morales said Llamazares had received calls from Spain’s Prime, Foreign and Interior ministers, all expressing their concern and assuring him the government would ask the U.S. for explanations.
The FBI has published fresh photographs of Osama bin Laden to try to track down the al-Qaida leader.
In a first “aged progressed” mugshot, he is portrayed in western clothes with wavy grey and black hair and a trimmed beard; a second shows the terrorist leader in his traditional outfit, with a white turban and a flowing, but greyer, beard.
Forensic artists used digital enhancement to modify Bin Laden’s features in an attempt to show what he might now look like.
The FBI also published “aged progressed” mug shots of another 17 terrorists wanted by the US, which can be seen on the state department website.
So all 17 are bogus. Nice. Can you figure out which ones are bogus. Just click on the photo to bring up the entire profile. Then Try click and save pictures. What do you see? One of them might be you? I would check if I were you.
Well they weren’t the only ones using images for immoral purposes. As noted in the link below. Shameful in use of someones photo in both cases.
- This never made it to the main stream media she wasn’t important enough and the news agency the photo was found on, never even said a word, like she was not important. Had she been a lawmakers child then I suppose something would have been said. Shameful absolutely shameful.
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