FBI age-enhanced picture of Osama enrages Spaniard

The Spanish politician whose face the FBI used to create a new, digitally aged mugshot of Osama bin Laden has refused to accept the apologies of U.S. officials, saying they are "not enough."

In a news conference Monday, Gaspar Llamazares repeated threats to file suit against the agency and demanded a "thorough investigation" into the incident, saying it caused him concern about the FBI's approach toward fighting terror.

"If this is how security against terrorism is guaranteed, whose hands are we in?" he asked. He also wondered whether the FBI kept a file on leftist, anti-war activist political figures like himself, implying that his likeness had not been arbitrarily selected, as the FBI has maintained.

Last week, an FBI spokesman acknowledged that one of its forensic artists had indeed used a photo of Llamazares found on the Internet to create the speculative image of Bin Laden.

The US Government has released a new age-enhanced photograph of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden as he may look now without his trademark long beard. Digitally enhanced images show the world's most wanted terrorist with different grooming and clothing, which he may have adopted in a bid to evade capture.

It also shows him with more lined features and lacking the long beard which many people associate him with.

In this Picture: Osama - the enhanced image of Osama and Spanish Politician Llamazares

The images were released by the US State Department and the FBI as they renew their efforts to bring Bin Laden to justice.

His is one of 18 wanted terrorist suspects listed on the State Department's Rewards for Justice website.

The programme offers huge rewards for information leading to the capture and conviction of some of the masterminds behind international terror attacks.

Using sophisticated digital enhancement techniques, forensic artists at the FBI’s laboratory in Quantico, Virginia have age progressed old photos of the 18 most wanted terrorist suspects.

"It is our hope that these digitally enhanced images will help someone recognise these terrorist suspects and then contact the Rewards for Justice program with information that leads to their apprehension," said Robert Eckert, assistant director for Diplomatic Security’s Threat Information and Analysis Directorate, which oversees the Rewards for Justice program.

"These new images are powerful examples of how advances in technology and science can be used to help find and bring to justice wanted persons,” said Louis E. Grever, Executive Assistant Director for the FBI's Science and Technology Branch.

“The FBI has and will continue to apply cutting-edge forensic, biometric, and technical capabilities to our most challenging cases. Together with our many partners, both here and abroad, we now call on the public to help us locate and take into custody those who threaten us," he added.

Since its inception in 1984, the Rewards for Justice Program has paid more than £50 million people who have provided credible information that has resulted in the capture, prosecution, or death of terrorists or has prevented acts of international terror.

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