The head of the United Nations investigative body for Syria, Robert Petit, stressed that there is an urgency to preserving evidence of war crimes committed during Syria’s brutal civil war. Petit leads the International Impartial and Independent Mechanism (IIIM). He said there is enough evidence to prosecute people who have committed international law violations, but urgent action must be taken to preserve and protect this evidence.
Following the ousting of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime by Islamist-led rebel forces, many families have rushed to former prisons, detention centers, and mass grave sites in search of missing loved ones. However, the immediate concern is how to safeguard vital evidence that could be used in future prosecutions. Petit urged concerted efforts in preserving such sites while demanding that strict controls over access to the sites be instituted by the authorities to avoid the destruction or tampering with evidence.
Since its founding in 2016, the IIIM has conducted its work remotely from outside Syria because the Syrian government refused to cooperate with such efforts. Now that regime forces under Assad are reportedly weakened, Petit’s outfit is allowed to visit but needs formal permission to undertake their work inside Syria. Yet Petit himself pointed to the amount of evidence which his group already collected : hundreds of places which were defined as detention centres, military camps, prisons: most were connected to mass graves as well as grave human rights violations.
Petit likened the notorious Saydnaya prison, with its extrajudicial executions and torture, to Cambodia’s S-21, which symbolized the atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge. Petit hopes that the new Syrian authorities will permit his team to start its work on the ground. The long-term goal would be to establish a national accountability process and secure international jurisdiction over the crimes committed.
