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Syrian torture images to be examined by UN security council Syrian torture images to be examined by UN security council
(about 1 hour later)
The UN security council will meet privately on Tuesday to view slides of Syrians tortured and killed in the country's civil war. Photographs of some of 11,000 Syrians allegedly tortured and killed by Bashar al-Assad's forces are to be seen on Tuesday by members of the UN security council as part of an effort to prosecute the perpetrators for war crimes.
France is hosting the meeting in the hopes of prompting a referral of the Syrian government to the international criminal court (ICC). UN ambassadors are to view a selection of 55,000 digital images whose existence were first reported by the Guardian in January.
The country says the photos to be viewed are part of a collection of 55,000 digital images of Syrians who were tortured and killed by Bashar al-Assad's regime. France says the majority were collected by a Syrian military police photographer code-named Caesar, who smuggled them out on flash drives when he defected. France, which is sponsoring the meeting, says the majority were collected by a Syrian military police photographer code-named Caesar who smuggled them out on flash drives when he defected and joined an anti-Assad opposition group.
Ten of the photos – whose existence were first reported by the Guardian – were publicly released in January in a study called the Ceasar report, which was funded by the government of Qatar, one of the countries most deeply involved in the Syrian conflict and a major backer of the opposition. More will be seen Tuesday by the council. The intention is that the evidence of large-scale atrocities will prompt a referral of the Syrian government to the international criminal court (ICC). The UN human rights commissioner Navi Pillay has been pushing the council to refer Syria to the ICC but there is no consensus for such a step, with strong opposition from Russia and China. The Ukraine crisis has made any Russian-western cooperation even less likely than before.
Two of the authors of the report will brief the council: David Crane, who was first chief prosecutor of the special court for Sierra Leone, and Dr Stuart Hamilton, a British forensic pathologist. The third author was Sir Geoffrey Nice, the lead prosecutor of former President Slobodan Milošević before the international criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Ten of the photos were publicly released in January in a study called the Caesar report, which was funded by the Gulf state of Qatar, one of the countries most deeply involved in the Syrian conflict and a major backer of the opposition. That link led some to doubt the report's credibility. Syria's justice ministry dismissed both photos and report as "politicised and lacking objectiveness and professionalism", a "gathering of images of unidentified people, some of whom have turned out to be foreigners".
Syria's justice ministry has dismissed the photos and accompanying report as "politicised and lacking objectiveness and professionalism", a "gathering of images of unidentified people, some of whom have turned out to be foreigners". Two of the authors of the report will brief the council: David Crane, an American who was first chief prosecutor of the special court for Sierra Leone, and Dr Stuart Hamilton, a British forensic pathologist. The third author was Sir Geoffrey Nice, lead prosecutor of former President Slobodan Milošević before the international criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague. Russia and China have used their veto three times to block resolutions threatening sanctions on Syria. Still, the hope is that they may agree to an ICC referral if a resolution names both Syrian government officials and rebels as war crime perpetrators, a diplomat told the Associated Press.
The presentation at the security council is part of a process of documenting evidence of Syrian war crimes in the hope of referring the perpetrators to The Hague. That is unlikely to happen soon, however, because Syria has not accepted the jurisdiction of the ICC. The only way a case can be opened while Assad is in power is through a referral by the security council. Caesar was a crime scene photographer for the Syrian military. When the civil war began in 2011, he and his colleagues were reassigned to photograph the tortured bodies of prisoners. 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.
Russia and China have used their veto three times to block resolutions threatening sanctions on Syria. The hope is that Russia and China will agree to an ICC referral if a resolution names both Syrian government officials and rebels as war crime perpetrators, according to a western diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "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 said. "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."
Caesar, had been a crime scene photographer for the Syrian military. When the civil war began, he and his colleagues were reassigned to photograph the tortured bodies of rebels and dissidents, providing proof to the regime that its enemies had been liquidated in detention. In the collection of images, each body was photographed four or five times, so the authors estimated that about 11,000 victims are pictured.
A relative of Caesar who defected early in the civil war kept in contact with him, and persuaded him to collect the images over the next three years, the report says. Its authors found Caesar to be credible when they debriefed him in January. They added that "he made it plain that he had never witnessed a single execution", although he and his team had to photograph as many as 50 bodies a day. The forensic team found that in a representative sample of images they studied, 62% showed emaciation. Nineteen percent showed neck injuries, and "16% showed evidence of ligature marks on the neck." Based on the systematic pattern of injuries, the report said "there is 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".
In the collection of images, each body was photographed four or five times, so the authors estimate that about 11,000 victims are pictured.
Caesar smuggled out almost 27,000 of the images, the report said. It said the others came from similar, unnamed sources.
The forensic team examined about 5,500 of the images and found that almost all were of men aged 20 to 40; only one woman was pictured and there were no children in the images.
The forensic team found that in a representative sample of images they studied, 62% showed emaciation. Nineteen percent showed neck injuries, and "16% showed evidence of ligature marks on the neck."
Based on the systematic pattern of injuries, the report said "there is 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".