Thursday, August 28th, 2025
Home »Top Stories » Spain wants US to publicise Osama photo mistake

  • News Desk
  • Jan 22nd, 2010
  • Comments Off on Spain wants US to publicise Osama photo mistake
Spain wants Washington to publicise a mistake by the FBI which used the features of a Spanish politician known for his anti-US positions in a new computer-generated photo of Osama bin Laden, the foreign minister said Thursday. The FBI's contemporary representation of the al Qaeda leader, with greying hair and a stubble and using the forehead and hair of Gaspar Llamazares, was visible for several hours on the most wanted "Rewards for Justice" website, before it was removed.

"We are in the process of asking the Americans," to highlight the mistake, "and we hope they will do just that," Miguel Angel Moratinos told the Cuatro news station. He said Madrid had expressed its "perplexity" and "great surprise" to the new US ambassador to Madrid Alan B. Solomont.

FBI spokesman Ken Hoffman said Saturday that an FBI technician, acting on his own initiative, had taken the image of Llamazares from the Internet. But the politician charged the agency took the photo from its own files. "If leftists are part of the FBI files - North Americans, Europeans or from elsewhere - it's not by chance or a laughing matter," he told a news conference in parliament. Llamazares has said he had sent several letters to the ambassador, the FBI and the US Congress requesting an explanation.

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2010


the author

Top
Close
Close