The latest ICC Prosecution’s maneuver in the prosecution of the Kenyan suspects is the use of satellite photos allegedly sourced from “a renowned United Nations Satellite specialist.” The use of alleged satellite images coming almost 5 years after the event is itself a smoking gun that calls for a close scrutiny of the authenticity if not the veracity of those images, regardless of their stated source.
Satellite images can, and have been manipulated and doctored in the past to provide questionable bases for otherwise impermissible illegal interventions.
The use of captions, notes, and explanations added by the party relying on these images can easily be employed to persuade a less than scrupulous recipient and bear a false seal of authenticity.
Will the images to be relied on by the ICC prosecution office have added captions? Is their pixel clarity capable of authenticating any fraudulent editing?
Why have these images not hitherto been produced or cited in order to sufficiently afford ample scrutiny to every interested party? These are valid questions that implicate the validity of the prosecution’s case.
Before the US invaded Iraq in 2003, spirited allegations were leveled against Saddam Hussein that he was stockpiling Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs), allegedly by use of Mobile Biological Weapons Laboratories.
On February 5, 2003, the then US Secretary of State Collin Powell presented “satellite images” of these WMDs to a skeptical global audience at the UN security Council, and in the aftermath of the illegal invasion, the trailers were demonstrably proven to be no more than hydrogen generators used in the inflation of weather balloons!
By means of unrelated satellite images taken from spacecraft and some low resolution images from highflying spy aircrafts, Powell had alleged that Iraq had 8,500litres of Anthrax, and 4 tonnes of VX nerve gas, yet not a drop was found after the Iraqi invasion.
Obviously, it was a moot question implicating the images’ credibility as to why Collin Powell was relying on black and white photographs to buttress his case yet at the material time higher resolution colour images were available from satellites.
During the same period, George W. Bush had alleged that satellite images taken over the Niger had shown that Iraq was allegedly procuring tonnes of Uranium Oxide for its nuclear weapons.
The IAEA exposed this hoax after the documents and satellite images were shown to be forgeries (verified as such by the Italian Parliament in July 2005).
However, the bottom line was that justification was needed for the decision made by the US to invade Iraq and that is why incredible evidence had to be, and was cobbled by military snake oil merchants to fit in with, and prop this decision.
These are factual realities on the possibility of doctored or photo-shopped satellite photos to achieve an illegality, while maintaining a veneer of credible evidence, which essentially amounts to deceptive fraud.
On July 10th 2008, a photograph of four Iranian missiles projecting upwards was published by major newspapers around the World, yet it was subsequently revealed that this image was demonstrably manipulated and digitally altered.
Even Hitler’s diaries were altered by a master forger, and it was tragic that the authenticating examiner used the forged diaries to authenticate suspicious entries in the very
Fair play and disclosure of adverse or prosecutorial evidence in a legal contest (especially where the human rights of liberty and freedoms of the suspect are at stake) are an integral aspect and benchmark of a truly independent trial. Can such be said of the ICC process with its late disclosure of reliance on yet-to-be disclosed satellite images taken almost 1825 days ago?
The scrutiny required to authenticate the truth and accuracy of satellite images involves a wide array of parties from the verification of the functional capacity of the satellite(s) alleged to have generated the images, to the printer producing the final images.
Short of these guarantees and irrefutable assurances, satellite images constitute very unreliable and extremely suspect evidence upon which to base any conviction of a criminal nature. Masterfully altered images presented in a trial purporting to present the factual reality of an event are no worse than perjured evidence.
The allegation that satellite images of State House activities in January 2008 will be used by the ICC Prosecution office in the forthcoming trial is worrisome especially as it is critical to Kenya’s State security.
Satellite images are not iconic and ought to be viewed with grave suspicion when being tendered in criminal trials. Ideally, any satellite image relied upon in a criminal trial ought to be free of texts or added captions, since these are subjective insertions into the image not originally captured at the moment of taking the image.
Satellite images capturing the events of January 2008 in Kenya are obviously not new; what is new is the alleged reliance on these images 5 years after their making, which raises eyebrows.
Harrison Kinyanjui is an advo- cate of the High Court of Kenya.
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