As the clock ticks down on the Syrian civil war peace talks, a team of experienced war crimes prosecutors says they’ve come across evidence of atrocities committed by the forces of President Bashar al-Assad including the “systematic killing” of about 11,000 detainees.  It significantly widens the scope of Assad’s war crimes from what was already known or assumed.

The three former prosecutors examined thousands of Syrian government photographs and files that documented the deaths of people in the custody of Assad’s security forces from March 2011 to last August, and compiled the information into a report (warning, photographs may be upsetting for younger or more sensitive people).  The source of this trove of documents and photos was a former military police officer who defected to the rebels to get the information out of the country.

Most of the victims were young men; many were emaciated, starved; some had no eyes; others showed overt signs of torture, strangulation, and electrocution.  Families of the detainees were often told that the victims died of “heart attacks” or “breathing problems”.

The prosecutors are Sir Desmond de Silva QC, former chief prosecutor of the special court for Sierra Leone;  Sir Geoffrey Nice QC, the former lead prosecutor of former Yugoslavian president Slobodan Milosevic;  and Professor David Crane, who indicted President Charles Taylor of Liberia at the Sierra Leone court.

Human Rights Watch has not authenticated the evidence, but has already documented similar atrocities attributed to Assad’s government. 

“These photos – if authentic – suggest that we may have only scratched the surface of the horrific extent of torture in Syria's notorious dungeons, said HRW’s Nadim Houry.  “There is only one way to get to the bottom of this and that is for the negotiating parties at Geneva II to grant unhindered access to Syria's detention facilities to independent monitors.”