Hans Rustad En syrisk avhopper har hatt med seg 55.000 bilder som viser 11.000 mennesker som er enten sultet ihjel, slått ihjel eller kvalt. En ekspertgruppe har gjennomgått materialet og mener det er bevis på en systematisk krigsforbrytelse begått av regimet.
Noen har gitt ordre om at de skulle drepes og ønsket å se bevis for at det hadde skjedd.
Et advokatfirma ga de tre i oppdrag å vurdere materialet. Oppdragsgiver var Qatar, som er på opprørernes side. Tidspunktet for offentliggjørelse – 36 timer før forhandlingene i Geneve – er neppe tilfeldig. Men det betyr ikke at ikke materialet er autentisk.
De tre ekspertene fant at avhopperen, kalt Cæsar, var troverdig, likeså materialet han hadde med seg.
Det at forbrytelsen er dokumentert tyder på at noen som har gitt ordren ønsket å se bevis for at den var utført, sier Geoffrey Nice, som var aktor mot Milosevic i Haag.
The group of prosecutors, who have have vast experience in the prosecution of war crimes and crimes against humanity, claim this is «compelling» evidence they say could be brought before an international tribunal.
«This is a smoking gun,» said David Crane, one of the report’s authors. «Any prosecutor would like this kind of evidence — the photos and the process. This is direct evidence of the regime’s killing machine.»
Mr Crane, the first chief prosecutor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone, indicted former Liberian President Charles Taylor for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Another of the three lawyers who authored the report — Sir Desmond de Silva, the former Chief Prosecutor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone — likened the images to those of Holocaust survivors.
The method of starvation was «reminiscent of the pictures of those [who] were found still alive in the Nazi death camps after World War II,» he said in a CNN interview.
Hvorfor skulle regimet ønske å dokumentere sine egne forbrytelser, kan man spørre. Cæsar forteller om oppdraget.
One of the defectors, codenamed Caesar, told the investigators his job was to «take pictures of killed detainees», although he says he did not witness any executions or torture first hand.
«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.»
The inquiry team found him to be a credible witness, concluding that what the evidence they saw would «support findings of crimes against humanity» against the current regime.
Bevismaterialet kan sammen med avsløringer om begunstigelse av jihadister være en alvorlig vekker og hindre vestlige land å gå i Assads felle. Han ser heller ut til å ha gravd en grav for seg selv.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/10585600/Photos-may-prove-Assad-regime-committed-crimes-against-humanity.html
