Turkey – A Turkish cosmetics company is offering no apologies for using a highly circulated photo of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed as the face of its hair removal products ad campaign, saying that it was unaware that Mohammed was a terrorist and used the picture only due to the Al-Qaeda leader’s hairy appearance.
hurriyetdailynews (http://bit.ly/1xjdg1C) reports that Mehmet Can Yildiz, spokesman for the Turkish company Hemen Dene, said the firm simply chose Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s photo to promote its Epila hair removal system because it is, not only widely circulated on the Turkish Internet, but because “we thought his body was a good fit for our ad.”
Yildiz said the Al-Qaeda leader’s disheveled photo has been used in other ad campaigns, most notably for insomnia, and that Hemen Dene had no intentions of implying “anything political.”