Syrian regime 'torture' photographs could be the tip of the iceberg, warn human rights experts: Hague says those responsible for 'horrific crimes' must be brought to justice



WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT

Witness said he was tasked to record deaths in custody from 2011 to 2013



There are 55,000 photos which lawyers say are evidence of extreme torture

Report made by ex-war crimes prosecutors who deem witness 'credible'

One lawyer said abuses are likely to be even more extensive



Foreign Secretary said the images are 'compelling and horrific'

Dossier commissioned by British lawyers for Qatar which supports rebels

Assad regimes questioned the authenticity of the photographs



Aid agencies have warned that sickening pictures of tortured corpses - allegedly victims of 'systematic killing' in Syrian jails - are just the tip of the iceberg.



The shocking images, smuggled out of the country by a military police photographer, were described as 'clear evidence' of crimes against humanity by a team of war crimes prosecutors.

They show emaciated corpses with strangulation marks, cuts, bruising and signs of electrocution – evidence of extreme torture, claim investigators. Some victims had no eyes.

Scroll down for video

Shocking: This picture is one of 55,000 taken by a Syrian military police defector showing emaciated corpses which investigators say are evidence of extreme torture by Assad's regime. Photographs: The Report Leverage: A report into alleged human rights abuses in Syria was made available to the United Nations, governments and human rights groups just as peace talks are due to begin in Switzerland to try to end the three-year conflict

The images have drawn condemnation from international aid groups as well.



Graphic: The defector's evidence, which records deaths of those in custody from March 2011 until August 2013, were smuggled out along with files detailing the victims on memory sticks

Dossier of evidence: The photos will ratchet up the pressure on President Bashar Al Assad who the US and its Western allies - including the UK - say has committed war crimes against his own people

Allegations: The photographs allowed a death certificate to be produced without requiring families to view bodies, and also confirmed that execution orders had been carried out, the report claimed

Philip Luther, the director of Amnesty International in the Middle East, said: 'World leaders must demand that the Commission of Inquiry and other human rights bodies be granted immediate access to all places of detention – formal and informal – in Syria.



'The allegations are consistent with aspects of Amnesty International’s own research into torture and enforced disappearance by the Syrian government and must be taken seriously.



'If confirmed, these would be crimes against humanity committed on a staggering scale. It certainly raises the question once again why the Security Council has not yet referred the situation in Syria to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court.'

'The report raises serious concerns over the safety of the thousands of individuals, including peaceful activists, currently held in state-run detention centres and those subjected to enforced disappearance.'



Today's report was compiled by three lawyers, all former prosecutors at the criminal tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Sierra Leone, examined the evidence and said they found the defector, who goes by the name of Caesar, credible.

According to the report, he said his job was to take pictures of killed detainees, though he did not claim to have witnessed executions or torture.

‘There could be as many as 50 bodies a day to photograph which require 15 to 30 minutes of work per corpse,’ he told an inquiry team. The photographs allowed a death certificate to be produced without requiring families to view bodies, and also confirmed that execution orders had been carried out, he claimed.

Families of the dead were told cause of death was either a heart attack or breathing problems. The inquiry team said it was satisfied there was ‘clear evidence, capable of being believed by a tribunal of fact in a court of law, of systematic torture and killing of detained persons by the agents of the Syrian government’. Horrific: The inquiry team said it was satisfied there was 'clear evidence, capable of being believed by a tribunal of fact in a court of law, of systematic torture and killing of persons detained by the Syrian government' Documenting death: Caesar said his job was to take pictures of killed detainees, but did not claim to have witnessed executions or torture

The evidence would ‘support findings of crimes against humanity and could also support findings of war crimes’. Caesar's path to defection began in September 2011, around seven months after the conflict broke out, when he was contacted by a relative who had fled the country. The man - known as 'Caesar's contact' - was working for 'international human rights groups', according to the report. Caesar began sending him thousands of images, but soon became concerned for his safety, so the Syrian opposition arranged for him and his family to be smuggled out of the country. Their location has not been revealed, with the lawyers only saying they conducted their investigation in the Middle East.

It is also not clear how the Qatari regime came to be involved in the publication of the report. Qatar has carved an influential role in Syria by being quick to help the rebels and, later, by helping set up the Coalition a year ago with the aim of creating a credible alternative to Assad. Defector: Caesar began sending him thousands of images, but soon became concerned for his safety, so the Syrian opposition arranged for him and his family to be smuggled out of the country Evidence of strangulation: A picture which appears to show a ligature mark on a corpse's neck Qatar and Saudi Arabia are close allies in many respects. As Sunni Muslims, they share an interest in thwarting Shi'ite, non-Arab Iran and its Arab allies - Shi'ites in Iraq and Lebanon and Assad's Syrian Alawites.

Last year, however, Qatar found itself under pressure from Saudi Arabia and from the United States over the way the war was going, and notably over the rising influence on the frontlines of Islamists hostile to the West and to its allies in the Middle East - like the Saudi royal house. An expansion of the Coalition to 120 seats diluted Qatari control and handed leadership to the Saudi-backed Jarba. On the ground, however, Qatar is still a force, through groups like al-Tawhid, part of a new Islamic Front that controls large areas and coordinates with the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front. A Gulf source with knowledge of Qatari policy said the new emir, in power since June, wanted a lower profile than his father who had strongly backed the Arab revolts.

The new emir was also more open to Western requests to stop supporting militants, though Qatar still believed that arming rebels was needed to force Assad to compromise, however, the source said.

The report's authors are Sir Desmond de Silva, former chief prosecutor of the special court for Sierra Leone, Sir Geoffrey Nice, 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.

Tension: An inquiry team said the images were 'clear evidence... of systematic torture and killing of detained persons by the agents of the Syrian government'. President Assad, pictured, denies the claims

The Syrian regime has also funded and co-operated with al-Qaeda in a complex double game - even as the terrorists fight Damascus, it was claimed last night.

Western intelligence agencies, anti-rebels and al-Qaeda defectors claim two al-Qaeda affiliates operating in Syria have both been financed by selling oil and gas to and through the regime from wells under their control.

Rebels and defectors said the regime also deliberately released militant prisoners to strengthen jihadist ranks at the expense of moderate rebel forces.

The aim was to persuade the West that the uprising was sponsored by Islamist militants including al-Qaeda as a way of stopping Western support for it, the intelligence report claims.

Doubt remains over whether Assad will attend tomorrow's Geneva II conference in the Swiss resort of Montreux which is aimed at negotiating his exit from power.

But in an interview released yesterday, Assad said there was a 'significant' chance he will seek a new term.

He also ruled out any power-sharing deal with the opposition which he dismissed as having been 'created' by foreign backers.

And he called for the peace talks to focus on what he termed his 'war against terrorism'.

Meanwhile, Russia's foreign minister says that the U.N. decision to rescind the invitation to Iran to join the peace talks was a mistake but not a catastrophe.



Sergey Lavrov said Tuesday that UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's decision to withdraw his last-minute offer to Iran to attend the conference would have a negative impact on the United Nations image.



The Assad regime last night sought to distance itself from the photographs, and questioned their authenticity.

Bassam Abu Abdullah, from the Syrian Ministry of Information, said there was no evidence they were taken in Syria.

He told the BBC: ‘I doubt this report. We should check these photos. Who are these people? Where are the names? From which prisons? Who is this person who has the authority to have these photos?’

