Il Messaggero: an expert report on the photo incriminates the Ministry of the Interior
© mukhtarablyazov.org 15.11.2013

ROME: An expert investigation has been carried out which threatens to definitively accuse the central police station in Rome and the Ministry of the Interior for their conduct in the case of the repatriation of Alma Shalabayeva. The report was commissioned by the lawyers of the eldest daughter of Alma Shalabayeva, the Kazakh dissident and banker, Mukhtar Ablyazov’s wife. In its seven pages, the report confirms in detail what has been suspected since the end of the summer: in order to “create” a valid document for expatriation in the name of Alma’s daughter, Alua, six, embassy staff must have used a photo from the passport of the Central African Republic which Alma Shalabayeva had surrendered the police officers during the search and detention that very soon led to her being taken first to the Ponte Galeria Identification and Deportation Centre and then later on board a plane bound directly for Kazakhstan. In other words, somebody from our security forces must have handed the document over to the Kazakh embassy in order for it to be reproduced in a document which only at first glance, appears to originate from Central Asia.

THE SCANNER

The investigative report was signed by Fabio Pisterzi, an expert in three-dimensional graphics. As he explains, the reproduction of the photo was carried out using extremely unsophisticated means << with a scanner, confirms the expert, it is possible to copy an image and eliminate superimposed elements>>, he writes in reply to the question whether the photos are identical and <<therefore come from the same shot>>. So it is a simple reproduction using copying and adjusting>>. <<The part of greatest interest>>, the face, was <<cut out>>, and the clothes were superimposed in such a way that, in short, in place of the little girl’s neck appears someone else’s neck. The adviser concludes the report by stating that <<the reproduction was carried out by virtue of Photoshop software>>.

SUPPOSEDLY PERUGIA

The investigative report, completed on October 4, will be submitted to the public prosecutor, Eugenio Albamonte. But the indictment is addressed at the central police station and the Ministry of the Interior (where they are anxiously awaiting a section of the report on the case). But it is also possible that, at this point, Astolfo di Amato, the lawyer of Alua’s elder sister, Madina Ablyazova’s, will decide to turn to the prosecutor’s office in Perugia.

Sara Menafra

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