PARIS (AP)
- The latest audiotape statement attributed to accused terrorist
mastermind Osama bin Laden is not authentic, a Swiss research
institute said.
The Lausanne-based Dalle Molle Institute for Perceptual
Artificial Intelligence said it is 95-per-cent certain the tape does
not feature the voice of the long-absent terrorist leader.
The review of the tape was commissioned by France-2 television
and its findings were presented by the institute's Professor Herve
Boulard in a special TV report shown late Thursday.
He said the institute compared the voice on the tape, first aired
two weeks ago on Al-Jazeera, an Arabic television network, with some
20 earlier recordings of bin laden.
U.S. experts maintain the tape will likely never be fully
authenticated because its poor quality defies complete analysis by
even the most sophisticated voice-print technology.
But U.S. experts who have heard it generally support the
conclusion by U.S. law-enforcement officials that it probably is bin
Laden speaking.
In the tape, the speaker refers to recent terrorist strikes U.S.
officials believe are connected to bin Laden's Al Qaeda network. If
fully verified, it would provide the first evidence in a year that
bin Laden survived U.S. bombing in Afghanistan.
