Advisor To The Interim Government: The Leaked Photos Confirm A Syrian Holocaust

Mohamed Sabra, an advisor to the interim government, said that “the grisly photos of corpses who were killed under torture as political detainees represent a Syrian holocaust.”  Sabra calls on the international community to “intervene to stop the genocide perpetrated by the Assad regime against the Syrian people.” Sabra stresses that these images “expose the crimes committed by the Assad regime which used starvation as a weapon against the besieged areas and against detainees in prisons. These are war crimes of the first-class and violate the Syrian Penal Code, which prohibits torture, extortion of civilians and denying them food.” Sabra added that these crimes “violate the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the Geneva Conventions of 1977.” Sabra calls on “the UN Security Council to intervene in order to refer the file to the International Criminal Court.” Sabra points out that the leaked photos clearly show the detainees were denied food or drink for a period of sixty days, which led to the loss of 80% of the weight of the detainee, which represents violation of human dignity and systematic killing.” Sabra went on: “these are photos of 11,000 or more detainees, but if the world does not move, hundreds of thousands of more Syrians will die.” Sabra also stated that “we must appeal to the Friends of Syria Group to bring this issue to the UN General Assembly and to the Human Rights Council and not let these horrible crimes to go unpunished.” Furthermore, the Syrian Coalition reiterates its call to the international community to exert all possible pressure on the regime to step aside and allow Syrians to realize their desire for a free country. The Syrian Coalition also said in its statement that “an investigation by an internationally renowned panel of experts has found evidence of systematic torture and killing by the regime.” The team, which includes international criminal prosecutors, a forensic pathologist an anthropologist and an expert in digital imaging, examined thousands of images provided by a regime defector who worked within the security apparatus. Anadolu Agency published the first set of photos of detainees’ corpses yesterday and said that the images were smuggled by a military policeman who worked for the Assad regime for 13 years. The bodies showed signs of starvation, brutal beatings, strangulation, and other forms of torture and killing. 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 is based on nearly 50,000 photos taken by a defector named “Caesar” in the document who worked with the military police photographing the bodies brought from detention centers: The reason for photographing the executed persons was to issue a death certificate to be produced without families being required to see the body and therefore avoiding explanations as to cause of death and also to confirm these executions had been carried out, the report said. (Source: Syrian Coalition)