Posted on 01/16/2010 10:33:22 PM PST by James C. Bennett
Madrid, Jan 16, 2010 (EFE via COMTEX) -- Spanish politician Gaspar Llamazares, spokesman for the small United Left coalition, denounced the use of his picture for an updated wanted poster for Osama bin Laden.
The FBI distributed on Friday some "digitally enhanced" photos of the Al Qaeda leader in which he appears older and with a shorter beard, in one of which the upper part of Llamazares' face was used, according to a news story published in the Spanish daily El Mundo.
In a statement to the media, the Spanish politician said Saturday that what happened would be "funny" if it weren't for the fact that it "affects the safety and freedom of citizens and people who have not committed a crime of any kind." He said that situations like this show "the low level" of U.S.
intelligence services and indicated that he would demand that they explain what the photo of a political leader was doing in the files of the FBI, and why it was used to compose the image of a terrorist.
In a statement to the media, Llamazares said that he does not rule out taking legal action on a matter that he described as "very serious" and that, in his opinion, "shows the low level" of U.S. intelligence services.
Sources close to Llamazares told Efe that Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and his interior and foreign ministers - Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba and Miguel Angel Moratinos, respectively - have contacted him to express their solidarity about what happened.
The FBI, for its part, acknowledged Saturday the use of Llamazares' photo for the poster of the world's most-wanted terrorist.
FBI spokesman Jason Pack spoke with Efe after the Spanish newspaper El Mundo detected the similarity of the two pictures.
"We're aware of the similarities in the characteristics of the hairline in the photo of an older Osama bin Laden, produced by the FBI and published on the Web, and that of an existing photograph of a Spanish public official," Pack said.
The FBI updated this week 18 photos of suspected terrorists on the Web site www.rewardsforjustice.net, on which it offers rewards for their capture. Specifically, the U.S. government is offering a maximum of $25 million for Osama bin Laden.
Lacking any recent photos, the FBI experts digitally enhance the pictures they have to reconstruct the face the way it would look years later.
Pack said that to produce photos showing a subject's advancing years, the forensic artists select the characteristics from a database of photographs they use as a reference to create the new image.
Nonetheless, after a preliminary examination, "apparently in this case the forensic artist could not find the right characteristics among the reference photos and instead obtained these characteristics, in part, from a photo he found on the Internet." The FBI spokesman said that the forensic artist "was not aware" of the identity of the person in the photograph that he used and the similarities between the photos "were not intentional." The FBI said it will withdraw the photo of Osama bin Laden from its Web site.
In the picture the Saudi terrorist appears somewhat heavier, with grey hair and a short beard.
The images were created in the FBI lab at its headquarters in Quantico, Virginia.
Remember this?
Cheers!
Cheer up, Gaspar! You can dress up like that now and fly to any city in the U.S. and know you won’t be hassled by our airport screeners. Particularly if you buy a one-way ticket with cash and carry no luggage.
How about a beer with the Prez? I’m sure he’ll straighten this out.
Well, Peter Orzag already covered this.
The Government employees have outdated computers. If they just had newer ones they could have used some true ‘morphing’ software instead of just using Photoshop.
"Yeah, funny how that happens, huh? Damndest thing."
Yes. Come to think of it, there were quite a few Spaniards in some of the old spaghetti westerns. With cowboy garb, Bin Laden would have fit right in.
My wife said it looked like George Clooney.
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