Showing posts with label Gaspar Llamazares. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gaspar Llamazares. Show all posts

Friday, May 14, 2010

The FBI Playing With Photoshop Again

Photoshop is a wonderful program that creates great graphics and photo displays. However, when it falls into the hands of the bumbling FBI, expect something to go wrong and blogs to laugh. Not content with their thoroughly humiliating foray into the graphic arts world, after the Spanish MP scandal, the FBI has put its foot in it again, this time to comedic results.

Blogs are laughing at the FBI's attempt to apprehend James Bulger's girlfriend, Catherine Greig, with a photo mock-up of her over the years, illustrating what she has looked like and asking plastic surgeons if they have performed any work on her, via an ad placed in Plastic Surgery News. Apparently, the FBI was inspired by Megan Fox's plastic surgery and thought they should give it a go with this case...

RELATED ARTICLES

FBI's Aged Osama Pic Discredited

Bulger Blotter: Creative or Desperate? FBI Still Searching

The FBI is still searching for James "Whitey" Bulger, 80, some 15 years after he became a fugitive to avoid a federal racketeering indictment in 1995. The bureau is getting desperate creative as the search drags on and on and on continues.

The latest: Allure reported that the FBI bought a full-page ad in the current edition of Plastic Surgery News designed to track down Bulger by exploiting companion Catherine Greig's affinity for plastic surgery. The ad features photos of Greig, 59, and asks "Have you treated this woman?"

The FBI said Greig has had breast implants, a face lift, a nose job, liposuction, and eyelid surgery before she fled with Bulger. The Globe quoted an apparently straight-faced Mike Stokes, the managing editor of Plastic Surgery News, as saying "We're always happy to help." As Bostonist said, the FBI is getting creative. We suggest trying the National Funeral Directors Association newsletter, too.

http://bostonist.com

Thursday, January 28, 2010

How The FBI Should Have Aged Bin Laden In Photo

Bin Laden (left) the FBI's strange amalgamation (center) and Gaspar Llamazares (right)

On January 16. 2010, in a story this website broke first, the Judiciary Report wrote regarding the FBI's discredited aged Osama Bin Laden photo:

"The sensible, logical way to have gone about it is working with an actual photo of the real subject and adding greying to the hair and to the face, progressing it with wrinkles, slight jowls, a bit of crows feet, a mild wrinkling of the nose and things of that order, to create a projected image of what the person would look like as time passes. But the FBI took the loco approach - they cut and pasted pictures together, infusing the subject's image with that of other people, which is criminally negligent and reckless in law enforcement, as it will have the public looking for and trying to kill the wrong person. All the signs are there that a crazy person is running the FBI."

Today, IT photo expert and a professor at the University of Toronto, Parham Aarabi, confirmed what the Judiciary Report wrote two weeks ago, regarding what was truly the best way to age progress a photo of Osama Bin Laden. He stated, "The new way is to try to understand a person's face and see how that person would naturally age -- use physics and computer graphics in that sense to see realistically how my hairline and my skin will change as I get older."

A more accurate age progressed photo of Osama Bin Laden, released today by University of Toronto professor, Parham Aarabi

The photo set posted above shows the correct age progression technique, rather than the crazy one the FBI illegally employed, in committing copyright infringement and identity theft, in merging the photo of the most notorious terrorist in the world, with that of Spanish Member of Parliament, Gaspar Llamazares.

The FBI still does not grasp the offense they have caused, but imagine it this way. What if law enforcement in Spain decided to put out an age progressed photo of a terrorist responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocent people and used a photo of Senator Ted Kennedy, Senator Patrick Leahy or even President Obama to create the hair, forehead, eyebrows, face shape and beard in the mock up, then disseminated it to millions all over the world. The White House and U.S. Congress would be outraged.

The FBI has declined to comment on the NextGov.com article containing the professor's commentary. Of course, they will think people are trying to show them up, but it is a matter of public safety. You cannot go around using innocent people's images for law enforcement mock-ups.

What's scary is people okayed the terrible FBI mock-up at said agency, the Department of Justice and the State Department, when one look should have told them that was not really Bin Laden in the photo.

If I'd worked in any of those government agencies and someone asked me to sign off on that crazy FBI photo amalgamation, I would not have under any circumstances and asked the person who brought it to me, "Either you hate me and want me to get fired or think I need glasses or both." My next question would have been, "No really, who is that in the photo?"

FBI aging technique led to bin Laden mug mixup, IT professor says

01/27/2010 - Modiface A software program's rendering of how Osama bin Laden would age in 15 years (center) and 30 years (right).

The FBI should have focused on the physical aging of the suspect's unique skin type during a recent computerized age progression of Osama bin Laden instead of simply combining facial features from other photographs, says an expert on face detection and image processing algorithms...

"If I was looking for hairlines, I would perhaps look for a photo of bin Laden," said Parham Aarabi, chief executive officer of face visualization firm Modiface and an associate professor in the electrical and computer engineering department at the University of Toronto. "I would have used as much of Osama's own photo as possible."...

Modiface generated an age-enhanced photo of bin Laden in five seconds using an automated, Web-based tool without any manual user intervention or editing, and without additional photos or illustrations, Aarabi said. Modiface last week made the tool available free to the public, hoping that the law enforcement community will experiment with it...

"About five to 10 years ago, the software that existed involved adding overlays -- or taking elements of a photo [of an older person] and adding it to a photo that they wanted to age," Aarabi said. "The new way is to try to understand a person's face and see how that person would naturally age -- use physics and computer graphics in that sense to see realistically how my hairline and my skin will change as I get older."...

FBI officials declined to comment on Aarabi's assessment of its computer imaging.

http://www.nextgov.com

Monday, January 25, 2010

FBI Left Muslim Informant For Dead

Craig Monteilh

Yesterday, Craig Monteilh, a man that became an FBI informant, sued the Bureau stating they left him for dead, after getting him arrested and incarcerated during an under cover job. He states he was stabbed in prison by White Supremacists and in another incident, a "fatwa" was ordered against him due to work the FBI had him perform regarding a Muslim group.

The Judiciary Report warned two weeks ago on January 11. 2010 the FBI's promises mean nothing, as they do not honor their word. Whether you are a victim of crime or an informant, take everything they say with a grain of salt, as they are dishonorable liars, who are not to be trusted. Believing them could cost you your very life. They will use and abuse you, then leave you for dead when they get what they want.

They see victims of crime and informants as expendable, collateral damage. There are many other stories of victims of crime and informants being murdered, maimed or impaired, due to FBI criminal negligence. They simply do not care. Do not get involved with them.

F.B.I. Los Angeles spokesdevil, Laura Eimiller, claims the lawsuit is just a ploy to get money out of the FBI who routinely steal the American people's tax dollars with miscellaneous, bogus receipts.

She stated, "The government will have the opportunity to defend the lawsuit in court. However, the accusations appear to be desperate attempts by Mr. Monteilh to personally benefit at the expense of law enforcement officers and the Muslim American community."

a) Why are you invoking the name of the Muslim American community when they don't even like you (FBI)

- and -

b) When you say "personally benefit" do you mean like when the FBI, who are supposed to be out fighting crime, outright took a preexisting copyright it had no business touching in a million years, hired a Los Angeles entertainment agency, William Morris and collected a massive check for a show Fox decided to drop before it aired, due to bad publicity. Last time I checked, that was called criminal copyright infringement and is a violation of the U.S. Code and international law. You know, like using a foreign MP's photo without permission for terrorist mock ups. Well, well well, the crime fighters are criminals.

It says a lot that Monteilh and radio shock jock, Hal Turner, among others, keep telling this same story, regarding the FBI paying them to engage in incendiary and illegal acts, while infiltrating hate groups and mosques.

Considering the FBI has lied about not violating the privacy of the American people, via such means as illegal wiretaps, email scanning, unlawfully accessing phone records, personal library records and bank accounts, the public has absolutely no reason to believe the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Even the latest, extraordinarily disrespectful and downright dangerous international incident involving a Spanish MP has shown the FBI to be absolute liars.

It's amazing how FBI Director Robert S. Mueller continues to bring this nation's name into disrepute all over the world with his madness and treachery.

How much more disgrace do you intend to draw before you crash out of that job, oh Hoover reboot. More importantly, how many more innocent Americans will die due to your criminal negligence (for further reference see September 11th and Fort Hood, to name a few).

Suit by alleged informant says FBI endangered his life

Craig Monteilh, who says he worked undercover in Orange County as part of anti-terrorism efforts, accuses the bureau of abandoning him after mishandling a case. Action also names the Irvine Police Dep.

Alleged informant Craig Monteilh, 47, says that the FBI essentially cut him loose after a supervisor bungled an operation that would have led to the discovery of "bomb making materials" in a Tustin mosque. (Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times / February 24, 2009)

January 23, 2010 - An Irvine man who says he worked as an undercover informant for the FBI, most notably as a Muslim convert in an anti-terrorism case, filed a lawsuit Friday accusing his law enforcement handlers of violating his civil rights and endangering his life.

Craig Monteilh, 47, says he worked as an informant for the FBI from 2004 through 2008, providing information and assistance in narcotics, bank robbery and murder for hire investigations before being asked to go undercover as part of an anti-terrorist effort in Orange County, according to a complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles.

Monteilh alleges that the FBI essentially cut him loose after a supervisor bungled an operation that would have led to the discovery of "bomb making materials" in a Tustin mosque. Afterward, the lawsuit alleges, his FBI handlers reneged on a promise to implement an "exit strategy" that was to include back pay and severance pay and help with beginning a life with a new identity...

"The government will have the opportunity to defend the lawsuit in court," FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller said in a prepared statement. "However, the accusations appear to be desperate attempts by Mr. Monteilh to personally benefit at the expense of law enforcement officers and the Muslim American community."

Monteilh says in his lawsuit that his work for the bureau at times placed his life in jeopardy. At one point after his cover was blown, he said, Muslim extremists "ordered a 'fatwa' " against him and the Romania Mafia, Mexican Mafia and a white supremacist group all wanted him dead...

http://www.latimes.com

Former OC informant files $10 million suit against FBI

Published: Jan. 22, 2010 - A man who once worked with the FBI, allegedly feeding the agency information on local mosques and Muslim communities throughout the county, has today filed a $10 million civil liberties lawsuit against the federal agency...

"Mr. Monteilh communicated his grave concerns over the threats on his life to the FBI and asked for the FBI to arrange for protective custody, but instead he was left in general population, thereby exposed to constant danger of being killed," the suit reads...

"Assistant United States Attorney Dierdra Eliot gave Mr. Monteilh special permission, by and through a signed Federal document, to engage in jihadist rhetoric, including but not limited to conducting terrorist operations, possessing weapons and initiating conversations to further terrorist acts against the United States," the lawsuit states...

Hussam Ayloush, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Los Angeles Chapter, said it's not the use of informants that worries him, but allegations and consistent reports that informants incite violent rhetoric inside the Muslim community, and reports that agents use immigration, financial, and legal tactics to strong-arm people into becoming informants.

http://www.ocregister.com

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

FBI Used Spanish MP Photo In Another Terrorist Pic

The FBI's fraudulent Osama Bin Laden Photo (Left) and Spanish MP, Gaspar Llamazares (right)

The FBI's folly and arrogance knows no end. The FBI's now discredited Aged Bin Laden Pic scandal is not over just yet. New allegations have surfaced stating the FBI used the photo of Spanish MP, Gaspar Llamazares, in another one of its ridiculous mock-ups. This time, Llamazares's photo was used to create a so-called age progression photo of Libyan terrorist, Atiyah Abd al-Rahman. The agency has admitted wrongdoing once again.

Libyan terrorist, Atiyah Abd al-Rahman (left) and Spanish MP, Gaspar Llamazares (right)

The FBI have also been shown to be complete liars once again. Two days ago, they claimed the FBI illustrator/computer tech's foul up regarding the Osama photo was a one time thing that deviated from agency policy. Only to find out today, it was done in another case, using Llamazares' image for the Atiyah Abd al-Rahman photo.

Furthermore, the FBI released the photo of an allegedly aged Osama on January 14, 2010, touting it as rendered by "cutting edge" technology they've created, but that too was another bald-faced lie, as anyone could do the same with programs such as Photoshop, which have been in existence for years. For the FBI to go that far in a lie is very troubling. But the public doesn't know the half of what they lie to you about.

Double apologies for FBI technology gone awry

The digitally altered image of an older and greying Bin Laden (left in the photo) was meant to show how the world's most wanted terrorist might now look without his trademark turban and long beard.

But it created an

unexpected stir in Madrid when Gaspar Llamazares, the former leader of Spain's United Left communist party and the caucus's current spokesperson in the parliament, recognised strong elements of himself in the image and complained to the US.

The FBI claimed to have used "cutting edge" technology to reproduce new images of 18 of the most wanted terrorist suspects for the State Department's Rewards for Justice website. It admitted, however, that a technician "was not satisfied" with the hair features offered by the FBI's software programme and instead used part of a photo of Mr Llamazares, found on the internet. "The technican had no idea whose image he had found and no dark motive for using it," he said.

The US State Department was forced to withdraw the mocked up photo-image, circulated around the world last week. Meanwhile, the US Embassy in Madrid conveyed to Gaspar Llamazares its formal apologies. But it was obliged to do so twice, since it was discovered that his features were used by the FBI for another mocked-up photofit image, this time portraying alleged Libyan terrorist Atiyah Abd al-Rahman...

http://www.voltairenet.org

Monday, January 18, 2010

FBI Bin Laden Photo Flap Grows

The FBI's fraudulent Osama Bin Laden Photo (Left) and Spanish MP, Gaspar Llamazares (right)

Spanish politician and member of Parliament, Gaspar Llamazares, is threatening to sue the FBI, over illegally using his image to create an alleged aged photo of terrorist Osama Bin Laden. The Judiciary Report was the first to state the photo looked nothing like Osama. According to Google News, the scandal has now spawned 1,083 articles and counting.

However, by the time the world figured out something was wrong, two days had passed and the picture had been disseminated everywhere, from the U.S. government's website, endangering Llamazares.

Two days later, Llamazares spotted the photo and called foul and rightfully so. The FBI has now admitted they did use Llamazares' image from an old campaign photo to create the so-called aged Osama pic.

"New Bin Laden Image Taken From Spanish Lawmaker"

Today, websites are correctly pointing out, the FBI committed fraud and identity theft in unlawfully using Llamazares' photo. They also criminally violated the Copyright Act, via using the Llamazares photo for purposes not permitted under said law.

As another website pointed out yesterday, maybe the Llamazares photo usage wasn't an accident on the FBI's part, as prior to this incident, Llamazares called for war crimes charges to be brought against George W. Bush for Iraq and considering the former President's crony and friend, racist Robert S. Mueller, who he appointed to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, is still installed at the agency, some believe this was a deliberate act of malice against the Spanish MP.

After all, look at what the Bush Administration vindictively did to Valerie Plame and her husband, U.S. Ambassador, Joseph Wilson, for verbally going against them regarding the Iraq war. The Bush Administration have a firm track record of vindictively wounding people who exercise their constitutional and U.N. right to free speech, if it runs contrary to their purposes.

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Judge Calls for Bush and Allies to be Held Criminally Accountable for Iraq

03/23/2007 12:28 PM - Baltasar Garzon, the Spanish judge who tried to bring Pinochet to justice, has called for Bush and his allies to be brought to justice, calling the Iraq invasion "one of the most sordid and unjustifiable episodes in recent human history."

Llamazares, from the left-wing party Izquierda Unida, which is allied with the ruling socialist party, agrees. He plans to bring a motion before the Spanish parliament calling for leaders responsible for the war to face international tribunals.

"People cannot be allowed to make decisions that cause hundreds of thousands of victims, fail to recognise their errors and not have to answer to a court," Llamazares said.

Source: www.alertnet.org

http://www.shortnews.com/start.cfm?id=61252

FBI's Aged Osama Pic Discredited

Confirmed - The FBI Is Smoking Hashish

From The January 16. 2010 Judiciary Report Article

Two days ago, in the January 14, 2010 the article "FBI Releases Crazy Osama Pic" the Judiciary Report wrote:

"Exactly how much Hashish was the FBI illustrator smoking when he or she sketched a supposed aged photo of terrorist Osama Bin Laden. What were they thinking? That doesn't look like Osama. It looks like somebody's uncle. And did they give him Botox? I have to ask, does the FBI enjoy getting laughed at? Who okayed that mess."

http://www.judiciaryreport.com/fbi_releases_crazy_osama_pic.htm

Today, two days later, the FBI's photo has been discredited and withdrawn by the State Department. It turns out the Judiciary Report was right. The photo is actually a cut and paste job and the FBI illustrator grabbed a pic off the internet and didn't bother to check the identity of the person.

The photo the weed-smoking FBI illustrator used is of, Gaspar Llamazares, who is...wait for it...a politician and Member of Parliament (MP) in Spain.

He called the FBI's intelligence "low level" due to this amateurish, dangerous publicity stunt gone wrong, that was designed to showcase how useful, technologically savvy and "cutting edge" the agency supposedly is, in order to distract from their role in Fort Hood, the Christmas Day attempted airline bombing in Detroit and the agency's other blaring failures. As you can see, Llamazares looks nothing like Bin Laden:

Bin Laden (left) the FBI's strange amalgamation (center) and Gaspar Llamazares (right)

The Judiciary Report 1,247,007 - The FBI -0. You know they hate me, right. Whatever! I'm not scared of the FBI. I'm only scared of realistic things, you know, like the Boogie Man (joking).

Seriously, the sensible, logical way to have gone about it is working with an actual photo of the real subject and adding greying to the hair - and to the face, progressing it with wrinkles, slight jowls, a bit of crows feet, a mild wrinkling of the nose and things of that order, to create a projected image of what the person would look like as time passes.

But the FBI took the loco approach - they cut and pasted pictures together, infusing the subject's image with that of other people, which is criminally negligent and reckless in law enforcement, as it will have the public looking for and trying to kill the wrong person. All the signs are there that a crazy person is running the FBI.

It's very alarming that they took such a careless approach with something so serious. Yet, the FBI called it "cutting edge." What, did you do the cutting for the crazy photo at the edge of a desk.

The FBI + Photoshop =

I seem to remember, a point of contention in this lawsuit, sparked by an incident that transpired in late 2008, when an uncouth, ill-mannered Los Angeles FBI rep, Laura C. Eimiller, emailed then phone me, barking like the butch bulldog she is, about a photo on the Judiciary Report site. She stated it is of an FBI agent and "he's very angry with me" and "what kind of person" would run a photo without checking first...turns out that kind of person is you.

My comedic error garnered laughs on the internet. The FBI's dangerous error put a bounty on the head of a high ranking foreign politician, who now fears he maybe murdered with people thinking he is Bin Laden, due to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's sheer criminal negligence.

I found the above posted photo I used in the 2008 article through Google Images. It was also used on another website that was ripping the FBI to shreds. I thought it was a stock photo, as there was no name or photo credit attached, which is standard with royalty free stock photos (it's like people who do genital herpes commercials - they pretty much know they are acting in a commercial that will expose their image and likeness to all sorts of articles).

Had I known it was a real agent, I would not have used it for the article. I couldn't imagine the photo was of an actual FBI agent. The guy looked so made up and over the top, with the blonde streaks in his hair, multiple guns, the walkie-talkie and Arnold-Schwartzenegger-Terminator look on his face, I thought it was an exaggeration for emphasis, as is routinely done in stock photos. After all, I'd met and seen FBI agents and none of them were made up like that.

In short, the FBI are a bunch of hypocrites, to threateningly phone me, a victim of crime, screaming like a raving lunatic at said victim, over something that was a genuine mix up. They called and threatened me over a photo, yet in Court they've refused to give the above-posted agent's name. That's pretty cowardly.

I'd also asked her for a photo of the agent that did get arrested, to switch out the photos in the Judiciary Report article she was complaining about, she started hesitating during the 2008 call, then refused to provide a picture of him. She was more intent on issuing veiled threats and screaming at me, not resolving the issue. So, I hung up.

However, I do believe the real anger and what was truly behind that incident in the FBI contacting me, came from my article on the Los Angeles FBI's hypocrisy in locking up a blogger for uploading Guns N' Roses "Chinese Democracy" CD, prior to its release, while letting dirty stars like Madonna and her contingent, commit serious felonies, criminally ripping off a fortune in copyrights, for undue enrichment, that were meant to go towards producing cures to Cancer and AIDS.

Disease sufferers are the ones that have a right to be angry, not some incompetent, ignorant, racist, bone idle, corrupt, criminally negligent law enforcement agency, headed up by a Neo-Nazi, Robert S. Mueller, who've gotten more people killed than any other in history.

Osama bin Laden a member of Spain’s parliament? Embarrassed, FBI says no

Saturday, January 16th, 2010 -- 5:13 pm - The US Federal Bureau of Intelligence is red-faced after being caught using a photo of a member of Spain's parliament to create images of what the world's most wanted terrorist might look like after years of seclusion.

Two images of what an FBI forensic artist thinks bin Laden might look like today were featured on the US Web site Rewards for Justice for several hours. However, both images were based on a photo of Spanish MP Gaspar Llamazares, who was decidedly unhappy with the move.

The FBI's last photo of bin Laden is from 1998, according to media reports.

"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 press conference, according to the BBC. "It's almost like out of a comedy if it didn't deal with matters as serious as bin Laden and citizens' security."

http://rawstory.com

FBI admits Spanish politican was model for 'high-tech' Osama bin Laden photo-fit

The FBI has admitted using a photograph of a bearded Spanish politician as the basis for a mocked-up photofit image showing how Osama Bin Laden might look now.

Published: 3:24PM GMT 16 Jan 2010 - Gaspar Llamazares: FBI admits Spanish politician was model for 'high-tech'

Gaspar Llamazares: The digitally altered image of an older and greying Bin Laden was meant to show how the world's most wanted terrorist might now look without his trademark turban and long beard.

The US state department was forced to withdraw the mocked up photo-image, circulated around the world last week, after the discovery that it was not quite as technically sophisticated as the FBI had originally claimed.

The digitally altered image of an older and greying Bin Laden was meant to show how the world's most wanted terrorist might now look without his trademark turban and long beard. It was released in a renewed effort to locate him, more than eight years after the September 11 attack which he ordered and directed.

But it created an unexpected stir in Madrid when a Spanish MP recognised strong elements of himself in the image and complained to the US.

Gaspar Llamazares, 52, a member of Spain's communist party and the former leader of the United Left coalition in parliament, said his forehead, hair and jaw-line had been "cut and pasted" from an old campaign photograph.

The FBI claimed to have used "cutting edge" technology to reproduce new images of 18 of the most wanted terrorist suspects for the State Department's Rewards for Justice website.

But yesterday Ken Hoffman, a spokesman the FBI, admitted that a technician "was not satisfied" with the hair features offered by the FBI's software programme and instead used part of a photo of Mr Llamazares, found on the internet. "The technican had no idea whose image he had found and no dark motive for using it," he said.

Mr Llamazares said the mistake showed the "low level" of US intelligence services. It could cause problems for any individual mistakenly seen to resemble the wanted terrorist, he said. "Bin Laden's safety is not threatened by this but mine certainly is."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk

Oops! FBI Used Google Pic of Spanish Guy for Bin Laden Wanted Poster

January 16, 2010 - (ChattahBox)— Oh, man! This is really embarrassing. This week, the State Department released new digitally updated photos of al-Qaida leader and 9/11 plotter, Osama bin Laden. The picture on file of the terrorist fugitive was nearly a decade old.

So, FBI technicians were tasked with aging bin Laden’s image using high-tech computer software. Two new updated photos were produced and recently posted on the U.S. Department of State’s Rewards for Justice Web site. One photo depicted bin Laden with a trimmed beard and close cropped hair and another showed him sporting a graying long bead. Well, a Spanish lawmaker noticed something familiar about the photo of bin Laden with short hair. It was him!

Gaspar Llamazares 52, of Madrid noticed that his forehead, hair and jaw-line had been used from an old campaign photograph available on Google images. The FBI admitted that a technician had used parts of Llamazares’ photo to make Osama bin Laden’s cropped hair look more realistic in the enhanced photo.

Ken Hoffman, a spokesman for the FBI, said “The technician had no idea whose image he had found and no dark motive for using it.”

Llamazares says that he is now fearful that he may be mistaken for the dangerous terrorist. “Bin Laden’s safety is not threatened by this but mine certainly is,” said Llamazares...

http://chattahbox.com

FBI admits Photofit of Osama Bin Laden had Spanish features

January 17, 2010 - A MOCKED-UP image of how Osama Bin Laden may look today has been withdrawn by the US State Department after the FBI admitted it was partly based on a photograph of a Spanish MP taken from the internet.

The Photofit image of an older, greying Al-Qaeda leader bore a striking resemblance to the left-wing politician Gaspar Llamazares, a member of Spain’s Communist party and a critic of the US “war on terror”. It turned out Llamazares’s grey hair, jaw line and forehead had been simply cut and pasted from an old campaign photograph by an FBI technician.

The FBI originally claimed it used “cutting edge” technology to come up with new images of terrorist suspects for the State Department’s Rewards for Justice website.

However, Ken Hoffman, an FBI spokesman, admitted yesterday that the agency had used a picture of Llamazares taken from Google Images to update the Photofit.

He told the Spanish newspaper El Mundo: “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 US government had previously been using a 1998 photo of Bin Laden, including on a wanted poster that offered a reward of up to $25m (now worth £15m) for information leading to his capture or killing.

Llamazares, former leader of the United Left party, was elected to Spain’s parliament in 2000. He said he would no longer feel safe travelling to the United States. “I was surprised and angered because it’s the most shameless use of a real person to make up the image of a terrorist,” he said...

http://www.timesonline.co.uk