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.
