Documents show Assad link to atrocities against opponents

Documents showing a direct link from Syrian president Bashar al-Assad to alleged atrocities carried out against opponents of his regime have been gathered by an independent organisation set up to investigate war crime.

The Commission for International Justice and Accountability (Cija) has amassed hundreds of thousands of documents, many leaked by defectors from the regime or salvaged from abandoned government buildings, according to a report in New Yorker magazine. The commission was established in 2012 and funded by foreign governments including Britain and United States,

The documents were smuggled out of the country to Cija’s European offices for analysis. The documents show Mr Assad signed off on a plan to detain and interrogate thousands of protestors and suspected collaborators with rebel groups.

Cija used the documents to prepare a 400 page legal brief on crimes allegedly committed by the Assad regime, including systematic torture and murder of regime opponents.

Some of the activities pertain to the Syrian government’s ‘Central Crisis Management Cell’, set up after the unrest of the ‘Arab Spring’ to coordinate the regime’s clampdown on protestors.

Cija has also interviewed hundreds of witnesses of crimes carried out by the regime, including murder, beatings and torture. One victim reported seeing piles of corpses in a Syrian military hospital known as Hospital 601, where suspected opponents were regularly tortured. Thousands died at Hospital 601, located in the outskirts of Damascus.

Speaking with The Irish Times World View podcast earlier today, Ben Taub, a reporter with New Yorker magazine, said care was taken in the collection of the documents to ensure they could be used in a future prosecution of Assad or others under international law.

“They have to take absolutely every document they can find in these government offices, wrap them up and then hide then in the ground or in abandoned homes until its safe to move them out of the country,” said Mr Taub. “They have to take everything because a defence council could say they have selectively weeded out exculpatory evidence “.

According to the New Yorker article, one person has been killed and three injured while attempting to take documents out of Syria. 70 investigators continue "very discreetly" to work for Cija inside Syria, said Mr Taub.