From AFP and AP
August 09, 2004
LOS ANGELES: An American reported to have been beheaded in Iraq at the weekend turned up alive in California 24 hours later to confirm he had faked his own execution as an "experiment" designed to demonstrate the power of the internet and the herd instinct of the media.
Benjamin Vanderford, 22, said he and a friend, Robert Martan, made the 55-second decapitation video at Mr Martan's home in May.
He posted the clip on an online file-sharing network and it circulated in cyberspace before being picked up by an Islamic website on Saturday. From there, the story made its way into the mainstream media, with Western television networks and newspapers reporting that a US citizen had been beheaded in Iraq.
But after interviewing Mr Vanderford at his home in San Francisco yesterday, the FBI said he admitted to the hoax.
Mr Vanderford was not arrested, but the FBI said it would launch an investigation to determine if any laws were broken.
"It was a political experiment ... (and) also a media experiment," Mr Vanderford said in a statement.
"I ... wanted to show the power of the media and the power of internet. If you can convince one, then the whole thing becomes true.
"As soon as (Arabic broadcaster) Al-Jazeera reported it, everyone else in the world was talking about it. America seems to have one source of information and that is what we proved. Convince one, and you convince America."
In fact, it was rival Arabic station Al-Arabiya that broadcast segments of Mr Vanderford's video, reporting that a US hostage had been killed "at the hands" of al-Qa'ida-linked terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The tape, which carries an Arabic title that translates as "Abu Musab al-Zarqawi Slaughters an American", shows Mr Vanderford sitting on a chair, his hands behind his back, rocking back and forth.
"We need to leave this country alone. We need to stop this occupation," he says.
The tape then shows a hand with a knife cutting at his neck, but does not reveal the presence of militants.
Mr Vanderford said he and Mr Martan made the video at Mr Martan's home in Pleasanton, California. He said they used fake blood for the execution scene and spliced the video with images of mutilated bodies taken from a website operated by Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.
Mr Vanderford, who opposes the US-led war in Iraq, said he understood if relatives of soldiers and civilians killed in the conflict thought his stunt was misguided, but he offered no apologies.
"I see how it could be considered disrespectful," he said.
"But I think people, if they look at it, will understand two other big issues it brings up.
"Everybody in my family knew it was false. My mother was funny about it.
"Everybody that knows me knows I was never in Iraq.
"I have no interest in going to Iraq or fighting in a war."
