War Crimes Evidence in Syria, SU Law Group has New Report on Government Violence Against Civilians
(WAER (Syracuse, NY) | May 1, 2017) A project at Syracuse University’s Law School is monitoring potential war crimes in Syria. The Syrian Accountability Project has a report out on some of the most violent and deadly incidents, allegedly carried out by the government against its own citizens.
Many of us followed in horror of the chemical attacks leveled at civilians in Syria last month. But Zach Lucas, Executive Director of the Syrian Accountability Project, has been following such atrocities for months. The group has a white paper out about finding six types of incidents against innocent civilians.
“From use of chemical weapons, use of barrel bombs, a nasty type of improvised explosive device dropped from helicopters, to indiscriminate shelling general, dragging war planes out every single day and just bombing neighborhoods. We also found extra-judicial killings, attacks on hospitals and the aid convoys on September 19th (2016).”
They were investigating the siege of Aleppo and also found another tactic – not allowing civilians a way to leave.
“The way the Syrian government has done it for the past six and-a-half years, the way it’s been carried out has just been awful, to say the least. There’s no distinguishing between a combatant on the ground and a lawful target, and just a child, for instance that’s just in their neighborhood trying to play.”
Lucas says their work can show investigators where to look for evidence and witnesses in preparation for a war crimes trial against Syrian Leader Bashar Al-Assad and others. SU Law Professor and project leader David Crane is confident justice will be served … if not so optimistic about the country’s future.
“We’ll get Assad eventually; there’ll be a knock at his door someday. But the area around Syria, known as the Levant, it’s destroyed. It will take a generation. It is now a part of the world the U.N. is only going to be able to manage. At this point it’s almost ungovernable” …
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