Refugee Says He Took Skittles Photo Donald Trump Jr. Used in Anti-Refugee Tweet
Photographer said he's "appalled" by the use of the photo.
— -- A photographer who says he took the Skittles photo used by Donald Trump Jr. in a tweet on the "Syrian refugee problem," tells ABC News that he is himself a refugee.
"I’m really really appalled by having my image, you know, on Twitter used against the refugees," said David Kittos, 48.
Trump Jr., the eldest son of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, posted a graphic on Twitter featuring an image of a bowl of Skittles, with a caption equating Syrian refugees to poisoned candy, which sparked outrage among many on social media.
“If I had a bowl of skittles and I told you just three would kill you. Would you take a handful?” the tweet's graphic says, "That's our Syrian refugee problem."
David Kittos, 48, who told ABC News he took the photo and who has what appears to be an identical image posted on Flickr from 2010, said, "How someone could twist things, and I don’t know, use my image to compare some sort of poor refugee to a poison sort of Skittle, that is just really beyond belief."
Kittos, who said he lives in the United Kingdom and left Cyprus as a refugee when he was 6, claims that he was not asked permission for use of his photo.
"I haven’t put the image for sale, and it was all rights reserved, so no, I wasn’t really expecting anyone to want to take it," Kittos said. "I have had stuff stolen before but when I got an email from some news website I was sort of really annoyed and disgusted to be honest."
Kittos told ABC News he does photography as a hobby and took the Skittles photo while experimenting with different flash techniques in his living room six years ago, never expecting it to become part of a political campaign.
The plight of refugees is an issue close to Kittos, who recalls fleeing Cyprus as a child.
"We all had to kind of just take our stuff and run away. It was quite frightening for all people who had to do it, especially for the people who actually lost family and not just their belongings," he said.
If he could talk to Donald Trump, Kittos said he would ask him to apologize to Syrian refugees. "But I don’t expect he will do that," he said.
The Trump campaign responded to a question about the photo with a more general comment on the controversy over the tweet.
"America has become less safe under Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, and Clinton's planned 550 percent increase in Syrian refugees is a dangerous proposal that will put American lives at risk," the campaign's senior communications adviser, Jason Miller, said in a statement.
"Speaking the truth might upset those who would rather be politically correct than safe, but the American people want a change, and only Donald Trump will do what's needed to protect us," the statement said.