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September 05, 2005

Bin Laden's image terrorizes abc

Rare photographs of Osama Bin Laden, including exclusive shots of the Al-Qaida leader on a battlefield, were broadcast by the ABC television network without the Egyptian photographers' permission, according to a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court.

Essam Mohamed Aly Deraz is seeking $10 million in damages in the lawsuit filed Thursday. He is claiming copyright infringement and is asking a judge to prohibit the network or any of its affiliates from using the photographs.

In 1998, Deraz twice agreed to allow the network to use his photographs on a one-time only basis for which he was paid $7,000 and $8,000 respectively, the lawsuit states. But the network continued to use the photographs without Deraz's authorization.

Apparently the images show Bin Laden fighting with the Mujahideen during the 1980s  According to the complaint filed in Denver (PDF), "(Deraz) was the only cameraman with Osama bin Laden in the late 1980s, and his film and photographs were the only ones ever taken then that show Osama bin Laden in the battlefield."

A sampling of the images filed in the action are here: one, two, three and four. All images are scanned PDFs.

Posted by Douglas Sorocco at 10:41 PM.
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