Marwan El Khoury - Project 3

I thought that I would never come back to this place again. The only times I enjoyed Switzerland were the first and last couple of months of my almost three years spent there. The rest of my time consisted of trying to work out a defence mechanism against bullying and patronisation as an ‘external’ student in forensic science. As soon as I obtained my MSc, I was eager to go back home and contribute to a better Criminal Justice system there.

‘What is forensic science?” asked the colonel leading the Lebanese ISF (police) labs during my first interview (2013-2014), “we are not interested in people like you. We only take biologists, chemists, biochemists and criminologists here, as stated in this official paper.”

After showing me a list of specialty majors, I proposed to the colonel to add the terms “forensic scientists” or “criminalists”. That was the end of the meeting. My emotions were shaken, but my goals are clear and I keep moving forward. Instead of applying to the ISF at this point of my career, I took a different path.

As one of the INTREPID forensics researchers at the University of Leicester, I could better digest the difficulties experienced in Lebanon and in Switzerland. In fact, both countries are currently my most visited destinations outside of the UK and the USA. I just came back from the Swiss Alps where I participated to this year’s Summer Doctorate School in forensic science and criminology. It was an essential step for me.

The scenery was medicine to the soul. My first train ride was along lake Léman (or Geneva), with a view on paddle boarders savouring the French Alps in the background. Just when I thought that it could not get any better, the second train passed through well-tended vineyards, then the savage flora in harsh terrains with occasional dips in dark tunnels. Upon my arrival, I discover the most serene village at an altitude of 3000 m: Les Diablerets.

L‘Ecole des Sciences Criminelles (ESC), my Master’s school, organised this four days long event. My discussions with members of the ESC (my ex-professors and fellow students) and with other participants, suggested that I was in warm, interesting and interested company. I finally made friends with my past in Switzerland. On a free afternoon, I visited the glacier at the Col du Pillon together with three men. They brought great spirits to our adventurous excursion on “top-of-the-world”.

Gary Lafree, Professor of Criminology at the University of Maryland, is also the director of the national Consortium for Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START). This Centre of Excellence was established in 2005, and contributes ever since to the analysis of domestic and international terrorism. Its open-source datasets system is a real treasure to academics, analysts, and practitioners. I share below one of their graphs showing the prevalence in the use of explosive devices since 1970, with the longest and sharpest incline occurring in 2011.

Jason Silva is a Doctoral Student and lecturer in Criminal Justice at John Jay College / Graduate Centre, CUNY. His presentation was about media and its role in US mass shootings. Jason’s data reveals how “newsworthiness” as judged by the media, can distort the facts and put human lives at risk. Yuchen Hou, also undergoing his PhD at John Jay College, works on the “officer-involved shootings of civilians”. Do you really want to know some numbers? In 2015 alone, 991 people were shot and killed by the police in the USA (The Washington Post). However, and as M. Hou mentioned at the end of his talk: the probability of encountering an armed civilian is higher in the USA than almost anywhere else in the world.

Apart from spending quality time with these guys throughout the conference and on the glacier, their works have particularly drawn my attention when it involved the role of the media in the study of crime.

Is it because of my upbringing in a house of journalists that I always thought about such questions?

Finally, the works of Gary, Jason and Yuchen, reflect today’s importance in mastering specific informatics skills to harness and analyse data in Criminology.

 

mek.

 

“What makes a specific area attractive for you to live in?” asked my mother in law on a weekend during my research visit to central Pennsylvania, USA.

“A choice of a few good, laptop-friendly coffee shops is definitely an important asset to us.” My wife and I replied.

“For me, it is the sense of belonging” added my mother in law.

And so, sitting tranquilly in that hip Pittsburgh Breakfast and Brunch, I started reflecting on the path that got me here in the first place: 9420 km away from Byblos, the Mediterranean city where I was born and raised.

 

The journey began on a summer day in July 2014, after an interview at the University of Leicester, under the INTREPID forensics programme, that led to both new beginnings and the most coherent continuation of my professional life. I started my PhD with INTREPID forensics in January 2015 and am now in my third year of DNA analysis from samples subjected to explosions, heat and other extreme conditions. As morose as this may sound, my position allows me to train and do research anywhere in the world for a period of three months – referred to as a secondment – as long as the institution I apply to reciprocates my interest. I was initially excited to explore the American way of academic research, and while attending the first Genetics in Forensics Congress in London in 2016, I was drawn to Dr. Mitchell Holland’s talk about mitochondrial DNA damage. When I approached him to discuss my ambition of doing my secondment in his laboratory, I felt that he was the right connection. And man was I right.

He said:

“This seems promising. Start by developing a plan of what you exactly want to do during your visit, and we will see from there”.

I quickly wrote my proposal and had a few Skype meetings with him and his team. Today, I am here, in the forensic DNA laboratory at Pennsylvania State University (PSU), working with Dr. Holland on burned bones and biological samples that we have detonated using high military grade explosives. My questions are: what happens to DNA in these circumstances? And how can we analyse it best for identification purposes?

Before I got here, I knew that Dr. Holland was a prominent forensic scientist who worked for ten years in the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory (AFDIL), publishing fundamentals in the field, and leading the teams that identified 1st Lt Michael Blassie, the Russian Tsar Nicholas Romanov, and many other skeletal remains from mass graves around the world. However, it wasn’t until later through casual conversation that I learned about his senior role in the identification of thousands of the 9/11 victims, together with his wife Dr. Charity Holland; and this from the most extremely degraded human remains.

My first activities at PSU revolved around visiting the magical campus, and getting acquainted with my new team at PSU forensic DNA. The lab conformation and standards were smartly organised into an efficient research and error-proof casework environment. The first two presentations that I attended were about the challenge of DNA analysis from skeletons and human hair. I was already ecstatic by then. However, when Dr. Holland presented his work in relation to the fight against oppression and war crimes, I deeply felt like I was truly amongst my allies in the profession. Not only do I owe this team the training and support to conduct a fruitful Secondment; they have also opened doors for further cooperation with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Penn State Police’s bomb squad in my experiments involving the use of explosives.

 

Arriving to my Pennsylvanian adventure was not the easiest feat. I plan to write in the near future about the interesting struggles I faced as a Lebanese forensic scientist who is dedicated to learning from the best in the world, whether in the UK, the USA, or Switzerland, so that one day I am hopefully able to help improving the Criminal Justice and Policing systems in the Levant.

I choke from happiness when I write about my current job. Therefore, I mean to express my utmost gratitude to everyone who supported and challenged my choices in the last few years: my family, my supervisors, my advisors and my colleagues at the University of Leicester. Finally, I reiterate my gratitude to Dr. Holland and his team for giving me a sense of personal and professional belonging during this exceptional experience.

mek

This post is meant as a platform to think about the ban on electronic devices larger than 16.0 x 9.3 x 1.5 (cm) as carry-on for all passengers flying directly from the ten countries mapped below to the USA or to the UK:

A clear and detailed cause of the ban has not been disclosed since it took effect at the end of March 2017. Digging into the possible reasons carries the risk of drowning in the murkiest waters: the world of intelligence and the world of politics. Nevertheless, I will try to think about it in the most appropriate way, and would appreciate you joining me in this quest.

In summary, what do we know about the ban?

Media reports cite intelligence sources talking about new information complementing previous data, and justify the ban as an urgent and necessary protection measure, given the persistent and growing interest in targeting civilian transport hubs.

The information seems to point at violent organisations who are plotting to use Electronics-Borne Improvised Explosive Devices (new term: EBIED) that are difficult to detect by conventional security measures found in many airports.

This reminds me of my previously written post “Who is making the bombs”, when the concept of the explosions of things is compared to today’s well known internet of things – meaning that we might approach an era where every existing object can deliver a bomb. As one member of the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) told me once: “if you can imagine it, then you can make it”.

The bombing of commercial flights has happened before, and there is no question that all necessary steps must be taken to eradicate any chances of it happening again.

It is true that the enforcement is harsh and unfair to several peoples, countries and commercial flight companies. However, the reality and seriousness of the threat cannot be undermined under any pretext. On 2nd February 2016, a suspected EBIED killed and ejected the perpetrator of the Somali Daallo Airlines flight 159 (fortunately only the perpetrator was killed and the aircraft made a safe emergency landing).

Why is this important?

Because it may help us understand a trend: In 1994, a contact-lens solution bomb on board of the Philippine Airlines (PA) flight 434 killed one person and wounded ten others. This bombing is understood to have been a “test-run” for a much larger-scale, deadlier terror plot planned for the following year, known as the Bojinka plot (which was thankfully foiled).

In light of this information, we must ask: Was the DA flight 159 incident similarly a “test-run” for an imminent full-scale attack?

And if so, why was the ban restricted to the specific Arabic area? Is the new information flagging these countries in particular?

One superficial reason is that these are hotspots for violent acts in the name of Islam – the geography’s predominant religion. However, many countries in Asia and Africa have been attributed to similar threats and were still excluded from the ban. Also, most attacks that were executed in Europe and the Commonwealth countries suggest that the risk of radicalisation is not contained in specific countries. Therefore, I think and hope that the US’s DHS and the UK’s Home office have made their decision based on relevant information  rather than on simplistic ideologies.

So what makes the twelve airports an adequate geographical selection for the ban? (around 300 other airports serve as last departure points to the US and/or the UK)

The DHS published a Q&A around the time the ban was issued, explaining that the selection was made after a “current threat picture” was drawn in collaboration with its intelligence community partners. However, the DHS does not mention any particular ‘chatter’ or evidence collected during the last raid on Al Qaeda in the Arabic Peninsula (AQAP) in Yemen. Not much is revealed about these airports’ selection.

From a security perspective, airports involve two major areas of operation:

1. A rapid movement of individuals and goods through controlled gates connected by airways (air travel).
2. A hub of large crowds requiring continuous protection and management (airport premises).

The ban targets an airborne activity. The individuals of interest, in this case the criminals, must not reach the airways while carrying theirEBIED. The following passage states two general goals that I think the ban is already achieving:

a) Improve international airport and aviation security:

Airports in general, tend to use multiple layers of security measures involving intelligence and on-sight surveillance. A couple of weeks after the electronics ban (April 11), the US Department of State’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) handed over to Rafic Hariri International Airport $650 000 in passengers and bags screening equipment. The donation was publicly described and includes vehicles screening, explosive residues, Liquids Aerosols and Gels (LAGs), as well as passengers’ shoes. Quite interestingly, there was no mention of Millimeter Wave Scanners to test against non-metallic threats, nor Explosive Detection Systems (EDS) applied to the luggage conveyor belts. I hope that our airport security members are undergoing state-of-the-art training, and are being efficiently vetted whenever appropriate. Investing in the the human element is as crucial as technology, if not more, for a strong airport security.

b) Deceive the enemy:

Deception is generally used to foil a plot. The airports selected by the UK do not necessarily overlap with those selected by the US. For example, Kuwait, Morocco, Qatar and UAE were excluded from the UK’s ban. This doesn’t necessarily mean that the intel differs between the two countries. Based on the same information, the two countries might be using different tactics. This discrepancy reveals that the threat is not the same in all twelve airports, and that much of the contextual information about the threat is kept in the dark.

A high potential for deception exists in the loopholes of a security measure. Under the current liquids ban for example, where each passenger is limited to a maximum of 100mL of liquids, you could still imagine a scenario where multiple passengers come together mid-flight and mix their respective liquids to construct a bomb. However, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) does not disclose everything about why this loophole is kept open, as this is “truly classified”. The electronics ban also has a striking loophole: what about using indirect flights to the US or the UK?

One last thing worth mentioning, is that the ban allows for a “behind the walls” inspection of all checked-in luggage. With this ban in effect, the passengers’ digital information is at risk of being secretly breached. It is believed that a covert operation of this sort was used to foil the 2006 Transatlantic plot.

Will we ever know the full-rationale behind this ban?

mek.

—–

List of all twelve airports affected by the ban:

Abu Dhabi International – UAE (U.S.)

Queen Alia International– Jordan (U.S. and U.K.)

Beirut, Rafic Hariri International – Lebanon (U.K.; no direct flight to U.S.)

Cairo International – Egypt (U.S. and U.K.)

Mohammed V International – Morocco (U.S.)

Hamad International Airport – Qatar (U.S.)

Dubai International – UAE (U.S.)

Istanbul Atatürk – Turkey (U.S. and U.K.)

King Abdulaziz International – Saudi Arabia (U.S. and U.K.)

Kuwait International – Kuwait (U.S.)

King Khalid International – Saudi Arabia (U.S. and U.K.)

Tunis, Carthage International – Tunisia (U.K.; no direct flight to U.S.)

—–

Last Friday morning felt like the week-end had already begun. It was an early day at work, but different from the usual lab days.

Silke Jensen, Alex Smyth, and I (from INTREPID forensics) as well as forensic pathologist Nitikorn Poriswanish, enjoyed the company of about a hundred individuals devoting their lives to a safer world. The East Midlands Policing Academic Collaboration (EMPAC) brought Police/Crime Commissioners (PCCs) and academic professionals around the same table to discuss Evidence Based Policing (EBP). Sgt Mark Brennan was key to organising Leicester’s EBP by assembling inspiring speakers that proved the possibility of thoroughly researched policing decisions. In the introduction, Dr. Matt Ashby has set the tone and linked EBP to “what works” against crime, rather than to the leader’s confident opinions or the “how we’ve always done it” approach.

The first session I attended, ‘How far do missing people travel when they go missing’, was presented by Dr. Susan Giles and Mrs. Lauren Walter from Liverpool University. Together with a mathematician and two computer scientists, Susan and Lauren have designed CASPER: a missing persons’ locator tool. The concept is inspired by the distance decay theory claiming the offenders’ tendency to travel short distances before committing their crime. CASPER provides leads around the whereabouts of a person based on previously recorded movement patterns of the same individual, or of individuals falling in the same category (e.g. demented, suicidal, etc.).

Violence, unfortunately, is not restricted to faraway situations and is sometimes perpetrated by the persons we consider closest. My second session was presented by Dr. Jesse Matheson who evaluated the performance of a domestic violence’s early intervention initiative. Dr. Matheson demonstrated the benefits of contacting the victims via Project 360: a support system embedded within the police force. In his presentation, the city of Leicester had the highest frequency of domestic violence when compared to other surrounding residence areas. I tried to quantify this crime geo-locally on police.uk (crime map shown below), but was only able to select “violent and/or sexual offences” (not only domestic). The North-West area of the city of Leicester counts 417 reports of such events, almost half of the total number within the selected area.

Later in the day, I discovered that there is a crime called modern slavery. Human trafficking, forceful labour, commercial sexual exploitation, organ harvesting and domestic servitude fall under this category. PC Amy Rutland discussed her investigation results into the extent of modern slavery in Leicestershire. Around 200 individuals were identified as victims of modern slavery in the East Midlands.  Amy’s report considers ways in which police and NGOs can efficiently communicate to better fight this crime. In fact, many of the victims are disinclined to contact police because of their illegal situation (e.g. illegal immigration status) as well as being enslaved. NGOs like Hope for Justice and the Red Cross are already on the ground to provide emergency needs. They also reach out to the community at large aiming to increase general awareness and support capacity.

 

The event had many more sessions running simultaneously, and I invite you to explore the very diverse programme here.

Prof. Lawrence Sherman from Cambridge University was introduced as the father of EBP before speaking at the event. In 2013, he published a 75 pages’ essay entitled Rise of Evidence-Based Policing. I will dedicate my next post to discuss his article and relate it to a recent security decision that, understandably, might have been taken in the shade: the ban to carry-on electronic devices (larger than smartphones) on flights departing from specific airports.

Would such a measure work against the most perverted minds?

In conclusion, Leicestershire’s Chief Constable Simon Cole stressed the importance of academic research within the police and concluded with an essential question : “When the time comes for our uniforms to be passed on to the next generation, do we want these uniforms to be in a better place?

—

mek

This piece of writing has been in ‘struggle to completion mode’ for quite a while now.

I wanted to publish it on a Monday morning, in sort of a rant about the never-ending Sunday night train rides from London to Leicester after a five-hour flight back from Christmas holidays in Beirut. I had imagined it to be a serious revival from the ashes type of blog: “Dear year 2017, you lock me in planes and trains, shoot short deadlines at me; but here I am guards up, moving swiftly, and ready for your punches.”

The thing is that I see it as less of a fight for the moment. The words I hear today are: “step down from the ring, go back to the gym and sharpen your saw”. Every now and then, the fundamentals need to be re-visited and now could be the best time. Starting with my first exposure to DNA “fingerprinting” at the American University of Beirut until my ongoing third year of PhD in Forensic Genomics at the University of Leicester, life has been happening – and if I think about it… Man what a ride! I almost got knocked out by the politically oriented VBIEDs in 2005 and the indiscriminate bombing from the skies in 2006; but I stood back up in the best way possible. Today I stand with a BSc in Biology, two MScs in Forensic Science, and hopefully soon a PhD in Forensic Genomics.

I trained with the Scientific and Technical Brigade of Geneva’s judicial police and was deployed on actual crime scenes, roaming freely in the city blue lights on. I learned how they operate in the field as well as in their labs. I also collaborated with Colorado’s police bomb squad as we performed together experiments aimed at exploring the preservation of biological evidence after explosions. I had a (few) blast(s) with you guys! Back in Lebanon after my MSc, I taught a forensic archaeology course at the American University of Beirut and mainly two other courses (human identification and introduction to forensic science) at the American University of Science and Technology. There is no better feeling than the interaction with dedicated (and some less dedicated) students. It was also a time when I initiated contact with the Lebanese Internal Security forces (police of Lebanon) and despite the many difficulties and systemic obstacles there, I was positively surprised by some highly skilled and professional individuals – thank you for being so naturally devoted to your job.

In addition to the crime scene/laboratory forensic science work and research, I have spent time learning how to exhume human remains from ancient burial sites with the aim of identifying the individuals as well as estimating their time and cause of death. I look forward to applying this part of my work to international human rights cases. Finally, the training and collaborations that I am benefiting from through the ongoing INTREPID forensics program is not describable in one text. I will therefore dedicate some of the future posts to talk about the extra-PhD project activities that we are covering through the European Commission’s Innovative Training Networks.

Today, I stand strong as my interests are expanding.

Ok! Time to take a break from the narcissistic ‘cover letter’-type burst of words. The aim of this first blog in 2017 was to create a safe space to self-reflect and be at peace with the challenges to come. If any of the readers are interested in a specific subject to be covered in my blog, please do come forward with your idea.

See you in the next post folks!

mek

[This blog post is unusual. It is the script of an interview facilitated by a friend (who, in solidarity with Ms. Elena Ferrante, wishes to remain anonymous). She offered me homemade sweets and a hearty pot of tea, so I couldn’t say no to conversation.]

…

Friend: Let us start with the general arc of your trajectory: you did your undergraduate studies in Biology at the American University of Beirut (AUB), you did 2 masters degrees, the first at Manchester University’s Biomedical and Forensic Studies in Egyptology program, the second at Lausanne’s Ecole des Sciences Criminelles in Forensic Science, and now you are a Ph.D. student in Forensic Genomics at Leicester University with Marie Curie’s INTREPID forensics program. Can you tell me about your inspiration for this trajectory?

Marwan El Khoury: Back in school, I remember being equally interested in literature, the social sciences and the natural sciences. I chose Biology for my undergraduate studies without an exclusive penchant towards it, but mostly because I was more confident in it compared to other subjects. Most of my peers who chose this program at the American University of Beirut were studying it as a pre-requisite to Medicine studies, which was far from my personal interests at the time.

There, I registered most of my ‘optional’ classes in Archaeology, a subject that turned out to be very formative with regards to my current interests. I wanted to use a solid scientific reasoning to resolve “what happened” in the past. Soon after I learned about DNA “fingerprinting” in a Molecular Biology class, I developed a main interest in identifying “who was there” which in fact turns out to be a crucial element to answering the larger question of “what happened”. Let me mention that DNA “fingerprinting” was invented by professor Alec Jeffreys in exactly the same building I go to everyday to work. My postgraduate studies in Forensic Science and my current PhD research follow the logic of answering the questions of “who was there” and “what happened” as accurately as possible.

–

F: Are you following this path out of intellectual curiosity or is it a desire to have real-life applications? Or is it both you are interested in?

MEK: You can say that it is both. This question however makes me reflect on the great power – which can be dangerous – of Forensic Science: applying theory to real life has direct and significant consequences on people. The danger is more in reporting the results to a ‘non-scientist’ decision maker (judge) rather than in the imperfections of the science itself. A perseverant intellectual curiosity and judiciousness are therefore essential for translating theory to real life applications.

–

F: Is there a type of case or investigation that interests you in particular? 

MEK: I surely have preferences, and they mostly relate to the type of evidence I work with rather than the type of crime. As my Ph.D. suggests, my chief interest revolves around bad quality traces that are difficult to detect and analyse. This is where I want to add value.

If I step outside of the strict role of the forensic scientist and fully answer your question, I am interested in the junction of human rights and the scientific investigation. I look forward to applying my work to cases that involve mass crime (murder, rape and looting) as a way of waging war, oppressing people and instigating terror. Another aspiration for me is to help regions affected by such experiences to establish their own judicial system that necessarily involves solid and advanced forensic science as part of the process.

–

F: Your project is quite specific at the moment…

MEK: Yes, the current title is Recovery of DNA from Samples that are Subjected to Extreme Conditions. It is still very broad in the world of Forensic Genomics and I have narrowed it down to more specific extreme conditions.

–

F: What are some applications of your project to real life?

MEK: Very often if not always, circumstances make it so that you don’t obtain pristine biological samples from the crime scene. Light, heat, humidity, time, physical strain, contamination … these are just a few factors that can heavily harm the quality of the information hence affecting the strength of the evidence. So working on how to make damaged DNA more interpretable means that you are increasing the potential to solve challenging and usually top priority cases, but you are also opening the way to go back in time and reconstruct heavily damaged “ancient DNA” (today a sub-specialty at the cross-roads between Genetics and Archaeology).

–

F: Do you think that regardless of how DNA was damaged, it can be analysed using the same method?

MEK: This is part of what we are investigating at the moment – are different biological samples damaged differently under the same extreme condition? How do different extreme conditions damage the same biological sample? What are the implications on the analyses?

The basic underlying methods of analysis could be the same, but technical tweaking is highly recommended. Today, we have significantly increased our analytical capacity by developing what is commonly referred to as Next Generation Sequencing (NGS). Running my samples on at least one type of NGS platforms is central to my project. In addition to a vigorous laboratory preparation, this technique generates a vast amount of data that is analysed through advanced informatics. I am also looking into the possibilities of repairing the damaged DNA artificially, knowing that the forensic science community has been very reluctant about the idea.

–

F: Do you build your own informatics tools for data analysis?

MEK: Fortunately, the bioinformatics community has, for quite a while, been on the task of facilitating the extraction and interpretation of raw data. I learned how to navigate the operating systems (Mac, Linux, Windows) and send various commands. I use the command line and apply the appropriate steps that I learned from the NGS data analysis workshops. I also look forward to applying my knowledge in R for statistical interpretation and data visualisation. I’m also trying to learn the Python programming language.

–

F: One wouldn’t necessarily expect that of a forensic scientist from the image that popular culture generally gives of you.

MEK: Yes, a lot of effort is being done to break the image of the “astronaut on the crime scene that will arrest the bad guys”. Today I feel that people more readily accept the idea that it is a discipline that has its basic foundations in hard sciences such as chemistry, mathematics, biology and physics – meaning that it bathes in uncertainty. I understand the disappointment of people who chose this career purely because they wanted to fight crime in heroic and absolute ways, but demystifying forensic science is only fair to all of us.

–

F: When your brain isn’t on planet science, where can it be found, doing what?

MEK: My peers might disagree, but I feel like I go back to humanity when I go outside of the lab. I do miss the human being and its imperfection. I miss social, political, economic issues, dynamics between humans, one-to-one relationships. I don’t want to sound radical, but at work I am removed from all social constructs, emotions and prejudice. No matter how relevant to you is a specific investigation, a bloodstain is a bloodstain, and the likelihood that it comes from this suspect rather than anyone else is ideally calculated in the same way.

–

F: Would you like some more tea?

MEK: No, thank you very much. Where do you keep the biscuits though?

---

                  Not every explosion originates from a bomb: those classified under the accidental type can be natural, physical, electric, and chemical in origin. They occur when all the favourable conditions coincide, and sometimes as a consequence of human ‘negligence’.

Nevertheless, many explosions are intentional. In fact, the industrial revolution would not have happened without our ability to overcome the massive barriers that separate us from essential natural resources. The first man made explosive mixture could have been inspired by the rapid combustion of potassium nitrate, charcoal and sulphur. This mixture is what we call gunpowder, and is how we marked history by a disturbing power to destroy. Gunpowder deflagrates upon ignition under ‘normal pressure conditions’, resulting in a mild explosion otherwise described as a very rapid combustion. Such explosives serve us today a number of other purposes such as avoiding natural disasters by blowing up potential avalanches, or even the creation of new spaces by demolishing buildings. I remember snapping this picture from my neighbourhood few minutes after last year’s demolition of Leicester’s city council’s offices, and would you excuse the randomness but I wanted to share it somewhere:

 

 

Unfortunately, progress is almost never benign, and all sorts of unwanted consequences could bulge out from it. Ammonium Nitrate, a widely used fertiliser, was only discovered to be highly explosive after the largest non-nuclear accidental explosion that shook up the United States. High explosives detonate under ‘normal pressure conditions’; resulting in a shock wave that travels faster than the speed of sound and that fragments almost everything that is on its way. Last August in China, seventy years later, we still could not prevent a similar industrial incident that involved the same chemical.

Some of us have instead developed ways to increase the explosives’ potency, and facilitated their use amongst fighting governments, military organisations, as well as the general population.

Weren’t we paving dangerous roads by spreading more knowledge about explosives such as the plastic or peroxide ones?

I will not delve into all bomb attacks that occur regularly against human beings; but it might be helpful to look at these striking figures: Wikipedia lists 405 terrorist attacks in 2015, from which 204 involved some sort of an Improvised Explosive Device (IED). Today, IEDs can be delivered in a mind-boggling number of ways. Small quantities are easily concealable and particularly difficult to detect. However, they still can be extremely powerful. Everything we can imagine today can hide a bomb. As a matter of fact, the ‘explosion of things’ is a haunting concept that we fear is becoming reality. A failed terror plot on board of the Northwest Airlines flight 253 has revealed an underpants device that was designed to kill 300 passengers and crew members above the city of Detroit. Six years later the group ISIS claimed to have downed Russian Metrojet flight 9268 above Egypt using a soda can.

It has been reported that the underwear contained Pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN) and another chemical called Triacetone Triphosphate (TATP), which also filled the suicide vests of last November’s Paris attackers. A TATP bomb is very easily prepared at home and, because of its powdery consistency, can be contained in all sorts of items. However, TATP’s extreme instability makes it a nightmare to everyone- including to the attackers themselves.

Explosive devices have killed, incapacitated and traumatised many of us whilst also destroying our shelters and belongings. Together with my fellow researcher Alex, we are working on possible improvements in the identification of bomb makers after the explosion has happened. Alex’s work focuses on the recovery of fingerprints while mine focuses on DNA.

The controlled production of artificially degraded samples in the lab is an essential move forward in understanding the specific damages that are brought by a chosen environmental factor. However, we believe we can make a stronger impact on ‘real’ life by working with ‘real’ samples as well. I would like to express my full gratitude to the Investigations Divisions and Bomb Squad of the Larimer County Sheriff and the Loveland Police Department, especially Sergeant Brian Wangler, Sergeant Ryan Ertman and the rest of their highly skilled and scientifically curious team. Together we have performed outdoor experiments by setting off pipe bombs that contained our samples of interest and then by adequately collecting the remains once the scene was safe to explore. As is possibly the case with other experiments involving explosions in the USA, we have also benefited from the presence and crucial advice of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives: the ATF.

I will let you guys imagine how fascinated I was, to be there and to be doing this:

 

War is an old but recurrent manmade plague.

Some might even argue that it is necessary.

Regardless of how well we think we understand armed conflicts, most of what really happens remains hidden. Many of the survivors, whether victims, perpetrators or witnesses, keep silent because of factors such as self-censorship, self-interest, fear, lack of protection, lack of resources, memory flaws, trauma and pain.

Specialists in the reconstruction of past events, e.g. the forensic science community at large, can reinstall a sense of justice by bringing answers to the five Ws that torment those with the need to know:

What happened and how?

When and where?

Who was involved and why?

Dr Lisa Smith from the University of Leicester (uol) is spearheading a project that combats one of the most destructive weapons of war: sexual violence.

The victims are mostly women but also include children and men. Unfortunately, the relevant international judicial bodies against such offences receive relatively few reports. Specific reasons for underreporting include obstructed access to medical facilities in conflict zones, a lack of training of the relevant personnel, and ideological obstacles.

This is why a group of researchers in criminology and genetics, led by Dr. Smith, are developing new ways to collect physical evidence related to sexual aggression in conflict zones. The project will increase the chances of identifying the aggressors before international courts of justice.

The initiative was introduced at the United Nations’ UK launch of HeForShe on September 29 in front of a fully-occupied Peter Williams Lecture Theatre (capacity: 485) at uol.

Professor Mark Jobling from the Department of Genetics commented on the potential of forensic identification through genetics: “The technology for DNA testing is powerful and robust, and in the UK, where we have a functional criminal justice system, we’re accustomed to its routine use supporting convictions for rape. We aim to be smart about how we apply it, so we can also make a real difference in the more dangerous and chaotic situations that exist in conflict zones.”

Armed groups in many areas are reported to rape their victims as part of a war strategy that causes long-term subordination as well as the destruction of human bonds, leading to the dismantling of communities and forceful displacement. From the legal (where the courts are concerned) and strategic (where the perpetrators are concerned) perspectives, this war crime is often one component of a larger pattern of crime against humanity or even genocide.

Indeed, forcing people away from their homes is a massive and unfortunately classical criminal strategy that seems to recur in various forms and scales across conflicts. At the 2015 Royal Society’s conference entitled ‘the paradigm shift for UK forensic science’, professor Sir Geoffrey Nice, war crimes’ expert from the International Criminal Court, asserted that forceful human displacement is often the end goal of warlords in order to transform demographic realities on the ground.

The investigation of war crimes, in general, is at another level of abstraction and is often contested by exceedingly powerful organisations. The main questions in such cases revolve around the responsibilities within armed groups and the whereabouts of missing/unidentified individuals. The types of evidence currently and inconsistently available to investigators are not limited to but usually include photographs, videos and sound recordings, as well as mass graves.

The latter is a special type of crime scene that requires the deployment of a multidisciplinary team: Archaeology helps in detecting and excavating the scattered or buried evidence. Forensic archaeologists are the specialists in outdoor crime scenes and are trained to understand and work within soil matrices as well as with all types of buried materials. They can survey the landscape, and analyse the geographic information before inspecting the areas of interest in cooperation with police officers.

Archaeologists are usually accompanied by physical anthropologists to ensure a state-of-the-art recovery of human remains. The teams work in tandem to estimate the date of burial, to reflect on the bodies’ dispositions and to draw conclusions about the actions that took place. A solid education in forensic anthropology would allow the expert to differentiate between the cause of death and the damage that occurs post-mortem as a result of body decomposition or grave disruption. Forensic pathologists can also be consulted. Prior to the confirmatory DNA testing, the process of identification can begin with an estimation of the ages and sexes of the individuals, since this can often be done on the basis of physical examination alone.

While the processes of excavation and analysis are methodical and reliable, they are also challenged on every level. This also applies to identification through genetics, as DNA in these cases has been irreversibly damaged and contaminated due to various environmental and intrusive factors. Our INTREPID forensics project aims to tackle this issue by establishing comprehensive and rigorous methodology, starting with the biological sampling, and down to the interpretation of profiles, working with high-end technology in assiduously clean laboratory conditions.

Authorities have a natural tendency to challenge investigations of war crimes and crimes against humanity for a number of reasons. Even when governments are not directly targeted by the investigation itself, the fact of stirring past unrest seems to put those who maintain order in an uncomfortable position. When the results of the Argentinian government’s own investigation into the state massacre of civilians (1974-1983) suffered from a lack of popular trust, a group of students, which included today’s renowned forensic anthropologist Luis Fondebrider, started by raising the public’s awareness about the issue. Thanks to the resulting pressure groups, they were able to re-examine the evidence, bringing a new level of rigour and accountability to the conclusions. In fact, this group eventually transferred its expertise in forensic anthropology to more than 30 countries around the world to assist in the investigation of war crimes.

The international community, which today seems to eye the Middle East, supported the Latin-American team. The International Committee of the Red Cross, the United Nations and Non-Governmental Organisations such as Act for the Disappeared have been collaborating together in an effort to exhume and investigate the Lebanese civil war’s mass graves (1975-1990). Similarly to how they previously migrated from Buenos Aires to Guatemala City, these efforts will likely naturally migrate in the future, from Beirut to Damascus and Baghdad.

mek

Our laboratory feels fresh and gets most of the natural daylight. This doesn’t mean that a lab day out in the search for a different atmosphere was not a sublime idea.

This year’s destination was the town of Loughborough, a home for approximately 60 000 persons that is situated at 11 miles North of its bigger counterpart the city of Leicester. Although Loughborough featured in the Domesday book which surveyed English and some of the Welsh territories in 1086; the town’s biggest influence as we know it today seems to come from the industrial period. The “Loughborough machine” for example, more commonly known as the bobbinet machine, was the first to produce lightweight but extremely durable textiles based on a specific type of tulle netting known as the bobbinet.

Good industry must benefit from a good transport system. Junctions from the main midlands roads flank Loughborough rendering it accessible by car from the north, the south and the west. The River Soar runs through the east of the town in a north-south axis; and the rail network going from Loughborough railway station serves into most of the United Kingdom’s reachable-by-train destinations.

Our chosen mean of transportation on that day was different. We travelled through the great central railway, a preserved heritage of Leicestershire; via the chuga chuga chugga CHOOO CHOOOO steam train!

Our most important destination was the John Taylor & Co. which started its journey in 1784 and is today the world’s largest bell foundry. It seems that Loughborough’s friendly transport system was an important factor behind its relocation from Oxford in 1839, as one can only imagine the arrangement needed to ship immense bells such as the 16.5 tons “Great Paul”.

Bells are percussion instruments that produce sound by vibrating upon being struck. Such devices have been associated with a number of ancient civilizations around the world with archaeological evidence dating back to 3000 B.C. from Neolithic China. Bells are still important structures in today’s Christian churches, in Buddhist temples as well as in other religious shrines. Visiting Loughborough was an exceptional chance for us to get familiar with the process of making them.

Bell metal is an alloy constituted of copper and tin in a respective ratio of 4 to 1. It is liquefied and then poured in between the spaces that are left by plugging an inner mould into an outer one. The structure is then buried underground, allowing the mixture to slowly dry, and the final result is the wanted hollow bell shape.

Further metallurgical expertise is needed to construct the clapper and the once wooden headstock that is nowadays made of steel for an increased durability. The headstock attaches the bell onto a wooden wheel and such a complex enables the swinging movement resulting in the “Bong” sound each time the clapper strikes the bell’s inner walls.

The complex consists also of a rope that rolls around the swinging wheel and extends downwards to reach the operator’s hands. This one of a kind rope is skilfully made at the foundry using a technique that is known to only two other places worldwide. Eighty-five per cent of the rope’s length is made of polyester while the lower part of the rope consists of hemp cord that is partially surrounded by a mixture of wool and acrylic fibres, combining resistance and comfort in handling. Impressively enough, the only bonds holding the different components together come from the extreme tension applied in the winding process. The production of a single rope takes six to eight working hours.

As is the case in all other musical instruments, the bell needs tuning for it to produce the optimal sound. This is represented by a consistent expression of five main partial tones at each strike: the hum note, the 2nd partial or fundamental, the minor 3rd (tierce), the 5th (quint) and the nominal. Tuning is the last stage and happens when the bell is mounted on a giant lathe as it might have some of its thickness progressively chipped away in order to adjust frequencies.

John Taylor & Co. houses 24 staff members each of them equally crucial to the satisfaction of the more than 100 bells per year demand. The personalisation of most corners in the foundry gives the impression that these individuals have successfully made of their workplace their second home.

That is no different from our laboratory at the University of Leicester. The way in which it is inhabited is definitely an added value. The balance between enough personal space and warm human assistance gives each one of us the unique chance to operate in harmony.

It is hard to accept the departure of some of our colleagues even though movement and change are sometimes the best ways to evolve.

To Pille, Chiara and Dan:

Your second home will always be waiting for you to come back and check on how we are doing. The harmony that we tuned together will be greatly missed.

With Love,

mek