Amnesty Hearings — Durban — 2000-07-24

UNKNOWN: Yes.  The process that was carried out, was really in two stages.  We received the skull from, sent to us by Dr Naidoo.  There has been an anthropological assessment of the skull, for example that we were dealing with an African female, and basically we were then asked to carry out a reconstruction based on that basis, which we did.
	The technique we used, was to place the skull onto a platform, acquire the information using a laser scanner by beaming a leisure scanner onto the skull to pick up all the co-ordinates of the skull, which are then transmitted and produced a three dimensional picture within the computer.  This was then used as our scaffolding, shall we say, for us to place a face on top of this skull.
	We use a face of someone of approximately the same type of age group initially, and it acts as a facial mask and that facial mask then moulds onto the underlying skull.  Obviously it doesn't just kind of fit over like a glove, you have to put landmarks on the skull and put landmarks on the face, which correspond to each other, to be able to produce this.  Also taking into account ...(indistinct) data that is available for that particular racial grouping.
	So that was all carried out and we produced a facial reconstruction on that basis.  That was really to see whether the shape of the face would be in keeping with the photographs that we received.  It was ... (break in recording) ...  we used a technique called video superimposition, which has been well established since the late 1970s, and used effectively in numerous court cases throughout the world, this technique.
	What we do is, we capture the image of the photographs of the person in question, so that they are then recorded and frozen and placed onto a TV monitor.  These are then, remain static as images, and then whilst we have them on the monitor, we then use a quality broadcast camera, that is a camera which is really the highest quality that we have available, so in order to do this, we employ the Media Services Department of our University, that does lots of professional work.
	The quality broadcast camera is then, then takes an image of the skull, which is placed on a universal tripod, this is a tripod which is designed to enable us to move the skull, in order to take the skull in any direction we wish, so that we can tilt the skull forward, we can tilt it backwards, sideways and so on.
	However, we need to compare landmarks on the skull directly with the photographs, so that we can align these images properly.  The way we do this is we make markings on the photographs, we do this before they are captured, we make markings on the photographs, so that we can align for tilt and rotation, and we do similar markings on the skull as well.
	And then, whilst having the photograph of the person on the monitor, on the TV monitor, we can also see an image of the skull come onto the TV monitor at the same time, which we can then move around to get it into the same orientation exactly as the other image, and we do this by using the lines that I have mentioned, and the landmarks.
	Once we are satisfied with that, then we can do a direct comparison to see whether there is a contour match with the outlines of both images, match or whether they don't match.  We found this to be a particularly powerful technique, because it also allows us to exclude quite quickly and to give negative identifications.  However, I have to say that one of the difficulties, if the person has a reasonably normal face, is that if they match in every respect, we still cannot say a hundred percent that it is that person, but we can ...(indistinct) very strong evidence, that we believe that there is an excellent match, as with the case here.
	Obviously if we have more than one photograph, we are then in a position to improve the situation slightly and confirm our contour match, say in one view, as we did in this case as well.  We used two views and we were able to get a good match with both views.  And so really, that is the extent of my work, I then produced a video recording for your purposes, so that it could demonstrate what we did.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much, Professor.  At this stage, I will ask Mr Visser, who is appearing for some of the applicants, whether he has any questions that he would like to put.  Mr Visser?

MR VISSER: Thank you Chairperson.  Hello Professor.  Professor, yes, I received a photocopy of the extract from Computer Aided Facial Reconstruction by Shahrom, and I will certainly want to ask you a question or two about that.
	First of all can you hear me clearly enough?

UNKNOWN: Yes, I can, yes, thank you.

MR VISSER: Professor, firstly, there are other experts in the field as well, I just wanted to know whether you know some of them, I am only going to mention two to you.  Have you heard of a Dr Susan Loth?

UNKNOWN: Loth, Susan Loth, from, she used to be in Miami, I believe?

MR VISSER: Correct?

UNKNOWN: Is that the one, yes.

MR VISSER: Yes.  And Mr, I am not sure whether he is a Professor or a Doctor, I am not sure about my pronunciation here, Mechmud Jassar Iskan?

UNKNOWN: Iskan is also from Miami, or was in Miami.

MR VISSER: And do you consider them to be experts in the field of Forensic Pathology?

UNKNOWN: Not Forensic Pathology, but Forensic Anthropology.

MR VISSER: Alright.  Will you just tell us what the difference is, please, very briefly.

UNKNOWN: The difference is that a Forensic Pathologist is a Medical Doctor who then specialises or begins his career, or her career, as a Pathologist, in other words the person who diagnoses diseases, carries out autopsies from the point of view of determining the cause of death, manner of death, looking into the circumstances, so that they can carry out and ...(indistinct) of thing, and then they may well specialise in Forensic Pathology, which is more directly involved with criminal cases and so on, medical/legal cases.
	A Forensic Anthropologist is a person who is involved more in looking to the identification process of a person, and also of course there are different kinds of Forensic Anthropologists.  The one that most Forensic Anthropologists consider themselves, is a sort of sort of major in osteology-type work, so they rely on looking at bones for identification.  They, because of this, they are in certain circumstances, because of the nature of their work, also quite proficient in being able to assess whether someone has been killed in a certain way, but that really is in the first instance in the ...(indistinct) of the Forensic Pathologist, they have to make ...(indistinct) assessment rather than  ...(indistinct)

MR VISSER: Yes, thank you, Professor.  Now Professor, you obviously would have read widely on your subject, are you acquainted with a book called Introduction to Forensic Sciences, Second Edition, edited by William G. Eckert(?), have you come across this work?  I am not sure whether you can see where I am holding it up?

UNKNOWN: I know of the books that Bill Eckert has written in the past, and I know Bill Eckert personally as well.  This is one of many he has written, I am not sure whether I have read that one myself, but I have certainly heard about him, yes.