Madrid: The Spanish lawmaker whose face was used by FBI to make a copy of Osama bin Laden for a poster has vowed to take legal action against the American intelligence agency, according to reports.
Gaspar Llamazares, a member of the leftwing United Left party of Spain, says he is planning to sue the FBI for using his face to create an image of bin Laden a few months before the al Qaeda leader was killed.
The Guardian reported that Llamazares also said his picture was used to make a most wanted poster for another al Qaeda leader, Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, who was also killed this year.
“I’m going to sue the FBI because they have not made things right apart from offering a weak apology through clenched teeth,” Llamazares told Spain’s Cadena SER radio station. “I’d like to remind you that the two people whose images were put together using parts of my face have since been assassinated.”
Pakistan’s The News International added that Spanish media reported the bin Laden image was put up on the FBI website again last week, but was no longer available on the site Tuesday.
In 2010, the Spanish politician first complained to the FBI for using his face to make a digitally-altered image showing how an aging bin Laden might look.
Typically, FBI forensic artists use features from a database of stock photographs to create an image. In this case, the FBI said a forensic artist did not find the right features and noticed Llamazares’ picture on the Internet. The agency said the forensic artist had no idea who Llamazares was and used his face to build bin Laden image.
Assistant director of the FBI’s laboratory division Christian Hassell offered Llamazares a written apology at the time, calling the incident “unfortunate” and said nothing deliberate had been meant by using his face. The age-progression image was also taken down from the FBI’s website.
And US Ambassador to Spain Alan Solomont personally apologized to Llamazares in 2010 for the use of his image, which was taken from his 2004 election campaign posters.
Bin Laden was killed by American SEALs in the military garrison of Pakistan on May 2.
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