By
Ian Black, Middle East editor
 |
| Report photo |
Syrian
government officials could face war
crimes charges in the light of a huge
cache of evidence smuggled out of the country showing the "systematic
killing" of about 11,000 detainees, according to three eminent
international lawyers.
The
three, former prosecutors at the criminal tribunals for the former Yugoslavia
and Sierra Leone, examined thousands of Syrian government photographs and files
recording deaths in the custody of regime security forces from March 2011 to
last August.
Most
of the victims were young men and many corpses were emaciated, bloodstained and
bore signs of torture. Some had no eyes; others showed signs of strangulation or
electrocution.
The
UN and independent human rights groups have documented abuses by both Bashar
al-Assad's government and rebels, but
experts say this evidence is more detailed and on a far larger scale than
anything else that has yet emerged from the 34-month crisis.
The
three lawyers interviewed the source, a military policeman who worked secretly
with a Syrian opposition group and later defected and fled the country. In
three sessions in the last 10 days they found him credible and truthful and his
account "most compelling".
They
put all evidence under rigorous scrutiny, says their report, which has been obtained by the Guardian
and CNN.
The
authors are:
-- Sir
Desmond de Silva QC, former chief prosecutor of the special court for Sierra
Leone
-- Sir
Geoffrey Nice QC, the former lead prosecutor of former Yugoslavian president
Slobodan Milosevic, and
-- Professor
David Crane, who indicted President Charles Taylor of Liberia at the Sierra
Leone court.
The
defector, who for security reasons is identified only as Caesar, was a
photographer with the Syrian military police. He smuggled the images out of the
country on memory sticks to a contact in the Syrian National Movement, which is
supported by the Gulf state of Qatar. Qatar, which has financed and armed rebel
groups, has called for the overthrow of Assad and demanded his prosecution.
The
31-page report, which was commissioned by a leading firm of London
solicitors acting for Qatar, is being made available to the UN, governments and
human rights groups. Its publication appears deliberately timed to coincide
with this week's UN-organized Geneva II peace conference, which is designed to
negotiate a way out of the Syrian crisis by creating a transitional government.
Caesar
told the investigators his job was "taking pictures of killed
detainees". He did not claim to have witnessed executions or torture. But
he did describe a highly bureaucratic system.
"The
procedure was that when detainees were killed at their places of detention
their bodies would be taken to a military hospital to which he would be sent
with a doctor and a member of the judiciary, Caesar's function being to
photograph the corpses… There could be as many as 50 bodies a day to photograph
which require 15 to 30 minutes of work per corpse," the report says.
"The
reason for photographing executed persons was twofold. First to permit a death
certificate to be produced without families requiring to see the body, thereby
avoiding the authorities having to give a truthful account of their deaths;
second to confirm that orders to execute individuals had been carried
out."
Families
were told that the cause of death was either a "heart attack" or
"breathing problems", it added. "The procedure for documentation
was that when a detainee was killed each body was given a reference number
which related to that branch of the security service responsible for his
detention and death.
"When
the corpse was taken to the military hospital it was given a further number so
as to document, falsely, that death had occurred in the hospital. Once the
bodies were photographed, they were taken for burial in a rural area."
Three
experienced forensic science experts examined and authenticated samples of
55,000 digital images, comprising about 11,000 victims. "Overall there was
evidence that a significant number of the deceased were emaciated and a
significant minority had been bound and/or beaten with rod-like objects,"
the report says.
"In
only a minority of the cases … could a convincing injury that would
account for death be seen, but any fatal injury to the back of the body would
not be represented in the images …
"The
forensics team make clear that there are many ways in which an individual may
be killed with minimal or even absent external evidence of the mechanism."
The
inquiry team said it was satisfied there was "clear evidence, capable of
being believed by a tribunal of fact in a court of law, of systematic torture
and killing of detained persons by the agents of the Syrian government. It
would support findings of crimes against humanity and could also support
findings of war crimes against the current Syrian regime."
De
Silva told the Guardian the evidence "documented industrial-scale
killing". He added: "This is a smoking gun of a kind we didn't have
before. It makes a very strong case indeed."
Calls
for Assad or others to face justice at the international criminal court in The Hague have foundered on the problems that Syria is not a member of the court, and that the required
referral by the UN Security Council might not be supported by the US and UK or
would be blocked by Russia, Syria's close ally.
Nice
said: "It would not necessarily be possible to track back with any degree
of certainty to the head of state. Ultimately, in any war crimes trial you can
imagine a prosecutor arguing that the overall quantity of evidence meant that
the pattern of behavior would have been approved at a high level.
"But
whether you can go beyond that and say it must be head of state-approved is
rather more difficult. But 'widespread and systematic' does betoken government
control."
Crane
said: "Now we have direct evidence of what was happening to people who had
disappeared. This is the first provable, direct evidence of what has happened
to at least 11,000 human beings who have been tortured and executed and
apparently disposed of.
"This
is amazing. This is the type of evidence a prosecutor looks for and hopes for.
We have pictures, with numbers that marry up with papers with identical numbers
– official government documents. We have the person who took those pictures.
That's beyond-reasonable-doubt-type evidence."
A
US administration official told the Guardian on Monday: "We stand
with the rest of the world in horror at these images which have come to light.
We condemn in the strongest possible terms the actions of the regime and call
on it to adhere to international obligations with respect to the treatment of
prisoners.
"We
have long spoken out about mistreatment and deteriorating prison conditions in
Syria. These latest reports, and the photographs that support them, demonstrate
just how far the regime is willing to go to not only deny freedom and dignity
to the Syrian people, but to inflict significant emotional and physical pain in
the process. To be sure, these reports suggest widespread and apparently
systematic violations of international humanitarian law.
"The
regime has the ability to improve the atmosphere for negotiations in Geneva by
making progress in several areas. However, this latest report of horrific and
inhumane prison conditions/actions further underscores that if anything, it is
tarnishing the environment for the talks.
"As
we have for over two years, and again today, we call on the Syrian government
to grant immediate and unfettered access to all their detention facilities by
international documentation bodies, including the UN Commission of Inquiry on
Syria.
"We
have long said that those responsible for atrocities in Syria must be held
accountable for their gross violations of human rights. The United States
continues to support efforts to promote accountability and transitional
justice, and we call on the international community to do the same."
William
Hague, the UK foreign secretary, said: "This report offers further
evidence of the systematic violence and brutality being visited upon the people
of Syria by the Assad regime. We will continue to press for action on all human
rights violations in Syria, and for accountability for those who perpetrate
them."
Nadim
Houry of Human Rights Watch said his organization had not had the opportunity
to authenticate the images. But he added: "We have documented repeatedly
how Syria's security services regularly torture – sometimes to death –
detainees in their custody.
"These
photos – if authentic – suggest that we may have only scratched the surface of
the horrific extent of torture in Syria's notorious dungeons. There is only one
way to get to the bottom of this and that is for the negotiating parties at
Geneva II to grant unhindered access to Syria's detention facilities to
independent monitors."
