The man who saw the picture of his amputated leg in a pack of cigarettes without having authorized the use

A 60-year-old man said that he was shocked to learn that a photo of his amputated leg had been used on a pack of cigarettes without his consent.

The image was printed in a packaging intended for sale in the European Union and accompanied by the message "smoking clogs the arteries".

But this man, an Albanian who lives in Metz, in eastern France, claims to have lost a leg following the aggression of his country in 1997.

His lawyer said he would contact the European Commission to find out what was going on.

It's his son who discovered the photo – who was wearing burns and recognizable scars – when he had bought a pack of tobacco to be prepared last year in Luxembourg, according to French media reports.

He took the package home for his family to see, and his father confirmed that, in fact,
it was a picture of his leg.

However, he badures that he has never given permission for the use of the image. He thinks the photo was taken to a local hospital where he went to see if he could receive a prosthesis.

"It's pretty amazing that a person is seen in one of the packets of cigarettes (that are circulating) in the European Union without there being any agreement (for that ", said Antoine Fittante, the lawyer of the individual.

"My client feels betrayed, hurt in his dignity, when he sees his disability appear in the cigarette packs of tobacco shops, we must admit that it is not very pleasant".

The lawyer from Fittante wrote to the hospital to find out how the photos ended up in the cigarette packs.

The European Commission is contacted,
The body is responsible for the distribution of this type of images in all EU cigarette packaging..

Fittante indicates that the body normally uses pictures from a database, which are verified and published with the consent of the person concerned.