Syria torture photos lead to calls for war crimes charges
Images of dead detainees show 'industrial-scale' brutality of the Assad regime, say prosecutors
Syrian officials could face war crimes charges based on photographs from a defector proving the "industrial-scale" torture and killing of 11,000 detainees by the regime, international prosecutors say.
Evidence smuggled out by a former Syrian military police photographer was reminiscent of the conditions in the death camps in Nazi Germany in the second world war, the three investigators said.
A report by the prosecutors - commissioned by Qatar, which backs the Syrian rebels - provides "clear evidence" of the starvation, strangulation and beating of detainees in President Bashar al-Assad's prisons.
The release of the report on Tuesday, first revealed by Britain's The Guardian newspaper and CNN, came a day before talks were due to begin in Geneva aimed at negotiating an end to Syria's bloody civil war.
"There is clear evidence, capable of being believed … in a court of law, of systematic torture and killing of detained persons by the agents of the Syrian government," the report said.
"Such evidence would support findings of crimes against humanity against the current Syrian regime. Such evidence could also support findings of war crimes against the current Syrian regime."
Syria has previously denied torturing detainees. A spokesman for UN rights chief Navi Pillay said further investigation was "clearly necessary".