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The Mysterious Picture Process
Thu, May 18, 2017
So, while the Chairman still has doubts about how the Citizen Kim picture ended up in the passport system without him entering the country, one of the IT experts from the Immigration Department is convinced that someone intentionally fooled the system.

She's Georgia Bowen, the Systems Administrator attached to the IT Unit within the Immigration Department. Yesterday, she told the Senate that from her experience, a picture was taken of Won Hong Kim's picture. When the Senate asked her about Erwin Robinson's explanation that he did take a picture of a man, she disagreed. Here's how she put it:

Hon. Aldo Salazar - Chairman, Senate Select Committee
"There is some speculation that the picture of Wonhong Kim is an image of another image."

Georgia Bowen - Systems Admin, Immigration Dept.
"Clearly, like Miss Chavarria stated that she was able to do and according to the picture that we can see that Kim was actually a picture taken, the camera can actually take a picture of that picture, so that would be one way of doing it. I don't see any other way of inserting that picture in the database."

Hon. Aldo Salazar - Chairman, Senate Select Committee
"So you don't feel that there is any other way in which it could be introduced except during the data capture?"

Hon. Eamon Courtenay - PUP Senator
"Did you hear Mr. Robinson's testimony?"

Georgia Bowen - Systems Admin, Immigration Dept.
"Yes I heard his testimony."

Hon. Eamon Courtenay - PUP Senator
"He said he actually took a picture of a person who sat in front of the camera."

Georgia Bowen - Systems Admin, Immigration Dept.
"Well, that's what he is saying, but when you look at that picture in the system who can clearly see that it is not a live person sitting there, it's actually a picture of a picture."

Hon. Eamon Courtenay - PUP Senator
"Ok, let's give him the benefit of the doubt. If someone came in front of him and he took that picture, does the system allow after that for the picture of the picture somewhere to be inserted so it came out?"

Georgia Bowen - Systems Admin, Immigration Dept.
"Not at all, with the system once you take that biometric picture and the finger print, once that application is closed like data enter completed, no one can go back in the system and change the biometrics, even if it was saved as created, it is difficult for that person to go back and take a picture. Sometimes it does not save, so you have to actually do a new entry within the system to capture that person. So they will have a double entry. So one has to be denied and one has to be taken to a approval."

Hon. Elena Smith
"Is it possible what you just said just now that maybe 2 images were there in system?"

Georgia Bowen - Systems Admin, Immigration Dept.
"If it was, it would be available in the system for us to see it."

Hon. Elena Smith
"So you would have seen that in the system?"

Georgia Bowen - Systems Admin, Immigration Dept.
"Correct, and there's only 1 entry for it Citizen Kim in that system."

Hon. Elena Smith
"The one that you saw is the one that shows the picture of the picture?"

Georgia Bowen - Systems Admin, Immigration Dept.
"Right."

We are told that the witnesses lined up to testify next week are Ambassador Cherie Nisbet, and Alvarine Burgess. Ambassador Nisbet, as viewers are aware, is the Belize Ambassador to Taiwan, who notified her bosses within the Government of Belize that Eric Chang was attempting to visit Won Hong Kim, who was in a Taiwanese Detention Center.

Alvarine Burgess, as you will remember, was the immigration agent turned whistleblower who testified before a judge that Edmond Castro took money to sign recommendation letters for Asians trying to apply for Belizean visas. That disclosure came in the case he brought against Burgess and Channel 5 for slander and Libel. He withdrew the case, which was a victory for the two defendants, and the allegations against Castro will likely resurface once again in the Senate Hearings.

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