War crimes prosecutors say President Assad could face charges after photos from a military photographer appear to show evidence of the systematic killing of 11,000 detainees.
Top prosecutors and forensic experts said that thousands of photos smuggled out of Syria were “clear evidence” of mass killing and torture.
Tens of thousands of photos, taken by the photographer who has now defected, appear to show emaciated, bloodstained corpses that bore signs of torture. Some had no eyes, while others showed signs of strangulation or electrocution.
The military police photographer’s job was to record the deaths of those in custody from March 2011 until August 2013.
The three prosecutors who examined the evidence – who were prosecutors at the criminal tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Sierra Leone – found the evidence credible, after 10 days of examination and interviewing the photographer, known as “Caesar”. They looked at some 55,000 digital images, which appeared to record evidence related to 11,000 victims.
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,” the Guardian reported.
This is not the first time that human rights abuses have been documented in Syria, but experts say this is the most detailed evidence provided so far – and the biggest scale.
The report was made public just 36 hours before the Geneva II peace talks begin, aimed at resolving the three-year civil war. The talks were in chaos after the Syrian National Coalition threatened to pull out when the UN announced it had invited Iran, President Assad’s ally. But ths was resolved on Monday night, when the UN rescinded its invitation to Iran.
The 31-page report was commissioned by a leading firm of London solicitors acting for Qatar – which supports anti-Assad rebels – and is being made available to the United Nations, governments and human rights groups, said the Guardian, which obtained a copy.
The authors are Sir Desmond de Silva, former chief prosecutor of the special court for Sierra Leone, Sir Geoffrey Nice, 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.