Sentence....

[bossidy]

This sentence is taken from a BBC article:

布里克斯担任联合国伊拉克核查小组负责人期间，他和他的同事未能找到可以证明伊拉克有大规模杀伤性武器的证据.

Since "证明" appears in the middle of the sentence, is "的证据" absolutely needed at the end? Thanks in advance.

[anonymoose]

Yes, it is necessary.

证明 is a verb meaning "to prove" or "to indicate". 证据 is a noun meaning "evidence".

The sentence could be translated as:

During the period Blix was the leader of the Iraqi nuclear inspection team, he and his colleagues were unable to find any evidence indicating that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

If you omit 证据 from the Chinese sentence, it is equivalent to omitting "evidence" from the English sentence.

[Mugi]

Yes, it is necessary as the grammar presently stands.

证据 is paired with 找到 (find ... evidence).

If you want to remove 证据, you would also have to remove 找到(可以) -> ...未能证明伊拉克有大规模杀伤性武器.

[Kenny同志]

布里克斯担任联合国伊拉克核查小组负责人期间，他和他的同事未能找到可以证明伊拉克有大规模杀伤性武器的证据。

This sentence is a little long, besides, there’s overlap between “证明” and “证据”(if something physical can be used to prove an assumption, can it be called “evidence” or “proof”?). It might require less vital capacity by being rephrased this way:

任联合国伊拉克核查小组负责人期间，布里克斯和同事未能找到伊拉克有大规模杀伤性武器的证据。

Maybe I am bit harsh, kind of a perfectionist.