Amnesty Hearings — Durban — 2000-07-24

MR LAX: Thank you Chairperson.  Just one, two aspects.  The first is, if one reads these other articles that were referred to, you have indicated they were published in 1996 and probably written a little bit earlier than that, some of the problem areas that are raised in these articles are areas with regard, for example, to the sufficiency of the image, the data that is used as the basis, the images that are used as the basis for the data to create reconstructions, in other words as I understand it, one takes numerous photographs of various people, of different features and then you agglomerate those features and separate out individual aspects of them and then use those to reconstruct.  Have I explained it or described it reasonably accurately?

UNKNOWN: You have probably complicated it a little bit, to be honest with you.  If I can just simplify it a little more, all you are doing is you are just shining a light onto someone's skull and that picks up all of the information around and puts it into a 3D image into the computer.  It is as simple as that.

MR LAX: Alright.  The bottom line though is, has the amount of data that forms the basis of your, that you use as the basis for coming to these comparisons, has that obviously increased since the time that these articles were written?

UNKNOWN: Well, what we've got to do here is to separate the facial reconstruction that we carried out, which was really just a guide to show us that we were on the right line, and from the photographs that we had, and the skull, to produce the superimposition position, yes, it has improved.  The technology has improved, because we have good quality broadcast images that we can put on screens and we can manipulate these images, magnify them much more accurately and check them more accurately, and when we magnify images, we can see better detail when we are matching.  So it has improved from that point of view.  Perhaps also - I hate to say it, but after doing more and more cases, as we go on looking at these and we have accumulated more, then we get the experience.  That obviously counts for a lot, seeing a lot of these cases, seeing where we fall down and where we can improve things, and from that point of view, we are therefore more confident in the work we carry out, than we were, say a number of years ago.
	As we pointed out in the one misidentification that was done, that was only on one photograph that was done, and it wasn't standardised, to the extent that this one was, where the line is drawn and the points marked out, and so on.  So there are big leaps from then.

MR LAX: Yes, you have inadvertently moved onto my next question, which was, if we were to provide you with more images, more photographs for example, better photographs, would the degree of certainty improve, or lack of certainty, as the case may be?

UNKNOWN: Well, let's put it this way, I come from the standpoint that based on these two photographs, I think it is highly likely.  If we look at it statistically, if you provide me with more photographs of the same person, it would then be quite possible for me to improve my position on that, based on what I have already said.  However, if - there may also be a very remote possibility that if you provide me with more photographs, that it may make it less, slightly less shall we say, likely.  It all depends.  I mean I really - if I see more photographs, it gives one a much more accurate appreciation and we get more and more towards a positive or even possibly exclusion, but in this case, I believe we will get more towards a positive, I mean that is my own personal view.  But I would, if I had more photographs now, probably I would say it would be difficult for me personally to carry out this test again, I would get another expert to do it, because I have already given an opinion on this case based on the two photographs, and I mean you know as well as I do, the difficulties in getting a witness to repeat something on which they already have an opinion on.

MR LAX: No, fine, thank you Chairperson.  Thank you Professor.

CHAIRPERSON: Adv Bosman?

ADV BOSMAN: Just one question.
	 Professor Vanezis, you describe the match between the photograph and the skull as an excellent match, was there anything lacking which prevented you from describing it as a perfect match?

UNKNOWN: There was nothing lacking, I had enough information in my view from these photographs to describe it in the manner that I described it.

ADV BOSMAN: Well, why could you not describe it as a "perfect match" then?

UNKNOWN: As a perfect match?

ADV BOSMAN: Yes.

UNKNOWN: Well because nothing is perfect in this world, there are, nothing is black and white, if you will excuse the phrase, there are different shades in-between and we can only give our opinions to the best of our ability and that is what I tried to do.

ADV BOSMAN: I regard that as a rather philosophical answer to my question, but thank you.  Thank you.

UNKNOWN: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.  Is there anybody who would like to put any further questions before we conclude?

MR VISSER: Chairperson, there is one very brief question, and perhaps I should have asked you this before Professor, and I am sorry that you have to listen to me all the time.
	What is your experience - you spoke, or the article that you sent, spoke about a data bank, computer data bank with images that you can project on skulls which makes it more accurate and makes life a lot easier and makes it much quicker, on that basis, what is the database on, for example on South African black people that would exist in America, or in Glasgow, Scotland for that matter?

UNKNOWN: Well, there aren't that many to be honest with you, in Glasgow, Scotland, that is true to say, but nevertheless we do have a small number representative of black people of different age groups, but I have to say once again that what we are looking at here are broad similarities as far as skin thickness types and fitting onto a particular skull to show actually just the face shape, nothing else with the reconstruction, that is all we're doing with the reconstruction.

MR VISSER: Yes, what you are saying to me is, I am also making it more complicated now, what you really did was a superimposition on a photograph and that was it?

UNKNOWN: That really, the reconstruction was in fact just a guide at the beginning, the true meat of the work was the superimposition work on the skull and photograph.

MR VISSER: Yes.  And do I understand you correctly to say that race, etc, wouldn't make that much difference to that part of the work, because you would have a photograph and you would superimpose it?

UNKNOWN: Well, I mean you wouldn't put a white face say on a black skull and vice versa, I mean that would be ridiculous, but the point is, if you have broad racial groups and you use a data bank which reflects that, that is fine if you are using it as a guide.  If you are obviously going to take it much further than that, and I am talking here of police work and using publicity to try and get somebody recognised, etc, then obviously you have to use different criteria, and then we would go into identikit images and so on, so it becomes more complicated.

MR VISSER: Yes.

UNKNOWN: Plus also if you notice, with this reconstruction the eyes are closed, because that's, the laser beam does not affect the person's eye when we collect the data.  So as I say, it was just used as a guide and it was a superimposition which mattered in this case.

MR VISSER: Thank you Professor.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MR VISSER

CHAIRPERSON: Professor, thank you very much indeed.  Once again, I would just like to express our gratitude in you giving up your valuable time and testifying in this matter, on a point that is very important to the whole hearing.  Thank you very much indeed.

UNKNOWN: It's been a privilege.