Photography News

Madrid, Spain /Photography News/ - A mocked-up image of how Osama Bin Laden may look today has been withdrawn by the US State Department after the FBI admitted it was partly based on a photograph of a Spanish prime minister.

The image of the aging terror chief with greying hair and stubble could be seen on the rewardsforjustice website for several hours before it was removed, offering a reward of up to $25m for his capture.

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.
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.
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."

Diana Topan