An if statement breaks my SVG!!!!

[beyaNet Consultancy]

Hi,
I have a simple xsp:logic section which performs a simple instantiation. I then decided to add some conditional code and wham!, my code breaks. What am I doing wrong here!!!????

 <xsp:logic>
int imageNum = 1;
byte[] photo;


Artist artist = Artist.getArtist(46);


if (imageNum == 1)
{
String test = "hello";
}


<!-- read image into a byte [] -->
byte[] photo_1 = artist.getArtistPhoto1();
//byte[] photo_2 = artist.getArtistPhoto2();


<!-- base64 encode byte array -->
String Photo1 = Base64.encodeBytes(photo_1);
//String Photo2 = Base64.encodeBytes(photo_2);

</xsp:logic>


<svg:svg width="300" height="300" y="0" x="0" viewBox="0 35 200 200">
<xsp:element name="image">
<xsp:attribute name="x"></xsp:attribute>
<xsp:attribute name="y"></xsp:attribute>
<xsp:attribute name="width"></xsp:attribute>
<xsp:attribute name="height"></xsp:attribute>
<xsp:attribute name="xlink:href">data:image/jpeg;base64,</xsp:expr></xsp:attribute>
<xsp:attribute name="id">artist1</xsp:attribute>
</xsp:element>
</svg:svg>

many thanks in advance