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Bit quite smoking gun { December 14 2001 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,1284,618755,00.htmhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,1284,618755,00.htm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4320071-108920,00.html
Comment
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Not quite a smoking gun
If the Bin Laden video is a fake, it is also a masterpiece, writes former Scotland Yard detective Charles Shoebridge
Charles Shoebridge
Friday December 14, 2001
The Guardian
Within hours of its release, the Osama bin Laden tape was dismissed by some as a fake. It is, they argue, the latest of a sequence of revelations of dubious evidential value.
As the British government admitted, although previous information indicated Bin Laden's guilt, it did not amount to a prosecutable case.
Thus, with the war's success and the likelihood of capturing senior al-Qaida members increasing, so too is the need to obtain hard evidence to link them with the September 11 attacks.
Without this, future convictions before trial, or tribunal, remain far from certain. Differences between intelligence and evidence, so characteristic of anti-terrorist operations, have again come to the fore.
It is within this context that "evidential" discoveries in Kabul and elsewhere could perhaps be viewed. Journalists described how they were directed to buildings where, scattered around, lay the apparent proof of al-Qaida's involvement in the hijackings.
This included new, still packaged box cutters, and a freshly-torn page from an American magazine, detailing Florida flying schools.
For any defence lawyer with knowledge of intelligence operations, this would probably seem a little too convenient.
Subsequent discovery of a genuine videotape therefore, where Bin Laden openly admits responsibility for the attacks, might understandably also arouse suspicion.
This is especially so given American technical capabilities, and the clumsily-handled public release of the tape.
Anybody who has viewed it, however, must surely come to a different conclusion.
If it is a fake, then it is also a masterpiece. The credibility of the evidence it offers is of a completely different magnitude from anything made public so far.
The tape's contents, from its disjointed editing to the body language of its participants, are entirely consistent with what it purports to be - a video record of a sheikh's visit to Afghanistan, probably for showing upon his return home.
Hence, it is the sheikh who talks for most of the time, and directly to the camera, which often features him alone. Bin Laden, clearly the senior of the two, speaks casually to his guest, with both men usually included in shot.
Authenticity is not simply a matter of content, however. The circumstances by which the tape came to be in existence will also be highly relevant.
So far, all that has been revealed is that the tape was found in a Jalalabad house. Such crucial material rarely, however, comes to a prosecutor so conveniently.
Behind any find of this sort is usually a story - one normally discussed away from public scrutiny. In this case, the delay in acknowledging the tape's existence may indicate an informant, or possibly collaboration with a foreign intelligence service.
In any event, a reliable account of the tape's origins will be needed for any trial - unless, of course, a military tribunal is used. Assuming the tape is authentic, what, then, is its evidential value?
Bin Laden expresses his support for the attacks, and his joy at having heard of them. This is not evidence of involvement, however, any more than it is of the children who danced in Palestine at the news.
His descriptions of waiting for the attacks are also not greatly helpful, as prior knowledge of an event doesn't necessarily prove culpability.
Detailed knowledge of the operations, for example the role of Muhammad Atta, could easily be explained, by reference to the broadcasts of CNN and others.
The video has two critical segments. The first is when, talking of the would-be martyrs, Bin Laden states "we asked them to go to America". With this phrase, he involves himself in the general conspiracy.
He also says: "We calculated that the floors that would be hit would be three or four floors. I was the most optimistic of them all ... due to my experience in this field, I was thinking that the fire from the gas in the plane would melt the iron structure of the building and collapse the area where the plane hit and all the floors above it only. This is all that we had hoped for."
This detailed admission, voluntarily offered, places him at the highest level of planning the attacks. Should Bin Laden come to trial, it will cause his defence team almost insurmountable difficulties.
In order for it not to prove his guilt, it would probably have to shown that Bin Laden was prone to making similar grandiose claims which were, nevertheless, false.
At various points, the visiting sheikh also praises him for the strikes - praise he makes no effort to reject.
If the video condemns Bin Laden however, it also exonerates others, whom he states had nothing to do with the US operations. It also highlights American shortcomings in failing to intercept communications between Atta and Bin Laden in the days before September 11th.
The video is not quite the smoking gun the Americans claim it to be. But it's certainly closer than they could ever have reasonably hoped for.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003
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