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EXCLUSIVE: Russia’s Dmitry Medvedev says acts portrayed in Syria torture photos are ‘crimes’
EXCLUSIVE: Medvedev on Sochi, Syria
Part one of Christiane Amanpour's exclusive interview with Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.
EXCLUSIVE: Medvedev on Russia's economy
Part two of Christiane Amanpour's exclusive interview with Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.
EXCLUSIVE: Medvedev on gay rights
Part three of Christiane Amanpour's exclusive interview with Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.
The transcript of Christiane Amanpour's full interview with Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev can be found here.
By Mick Krever, CNN
The killings portrayed in photos allegedly proving torture of prisoners by the Assad regime are “crimes,” but it is not clear who is responsible and the claims must be proven in court, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour in an exclusive interview that aired Wednesday.
“These are crimes, of course,” Medvedev told Amanpour at his office outside Moscow, but the case “should have firm proof legally.”
“I know there are a lot of victims, and that's very sad, but that does not mean that the existence of victims or victims in a particular place is the proof that those are the victims of the regime and not the bandits who were doing something or any other force.”
The investigation alleging that the Syrian regime is murdering prisoners on a mass scale, first reported by Amanpour on Monday, was authored by a team of international legal and forensic experts and based on thousands of photographs provided by a Syrian defector.
The defector claimed to have worked as a photographer at a military hospital that received dead bodies from detention centers.
Amanpour showed Medvedev gruesome pictures of emaciated corpses and torsos covered from neck to groin in bludgeon wounds.
“You know, in my university where I was studying law, I was taught that until the fact of guilt is proved in court, a person cannot be claimed guilty,” he said.
“We cannot say that Assad is a criminal without investigation,” he told Amanpour. “So probably this other trial should be held on the territory of Syria after the conflict subsides. It's the right of the Syrian people.”
Syria denies allegations of systematic detainee torture, killings
Syria's Justice Ministry on Wednesday categorically denied allegations published in a new investigation, and first reported two days ago by CNN's Amanpour, accusing the regime of torturing and killing thousands of detainees in government custody.
The government called the report "politicized and lacking in objectivity and professionalism," according to a statement on the sate news agency SANA.
The report was authored by a team of renowned international legal and forensic experts, based on thousands of photographs provided by a Syrian defector who claimed to have worked as a photographer at a military hospital that received dead bodies from detention centers.
U.S. calls alleged Syria torture photos 'extremely disturbing'
The U.S. says that gruesome photos that may prove torture by Syria's Assad regime are "extremely disturbing."
CNN reported exclusively on the story Monday; a team of internationally renowned war crimes prosecutors and forensic experts say they have found "direct evidence" of "systematic torture and killing" by the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime.
"These latest reports that you referenced, and the photos that support them, suggest widespread and apparently systematic violations by the regime in an effort not only to deny freedom and dignity to the Syrian people but also to inflict significant and physical pain in the process," State Department deputy spokeswoman Marie Harf told CNN on Tuesday.
"As we have said before, the Syrian regime is responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity. These most recent images I think presented by your network first, are extremely disturbing."
"They are horrible to look at and they illustrate apparent actions that would be serious international crimes and we have long said that those responsible for these kind of serious violations in Syria must be held to account."
Blair ‘sickened’ by alleged Syria torture photos
Blair 'sickened' by Syria photos
Former UK PM Blair says he is "sickened" by pictures, first reported on by Amanpour, that allegedly prove Syrian torture
Blair not bothered by citizen's arrest
Former Prime Minister Tony Blair tells CNN's Hala Gorani he is not bothered by a waiter's attempted citizen's arrest.
By Mick Krever, CNN
Former British Prime Minister is “sickened” by gruesome photos that allegedly prove the torture and killing of thousands of prisoners by the Assad regime in Syria, he told CNN’s Hala Gorani, sitting in for Christiane Amanpour.
Amanpour broke the story in an exclusive report Monday. It is based on the work of renowned war crimes prosecutors and forensic experts who say a Syrian defector has provided the “smoking gun” of the Syrian regime’s “killing machine.”
“What’s happening there, and those pictures and those scenes that we saw, are just evidence of it – what is happening there is not going to stop at the borders of Syria,” Blair said. “And that’s what we’ve got to realize, I’m afraid.”
EXCLUSIVE: Gruesome Syria photos may prove torture by Assad regime
Syria's alleged 'killing machine'
Assad regime systematically tortured to death prisoners, including by forced starvation, new report by renowned experts alleges.
Analysing Syria's alleged torture report
Experts analyse a new report by renowned experts that alleges the Assad regime systematically tortured to death prisoners.
How will Syria react to torture allegations?
How will the Syrian regime respond to the new report by renowned experts alleging torture? CNN's Fred Pleitgen reports.
By Mick Krever and Schams Elwazer, CNN
(CNN) - A team of internationally renowned war crimes prosecutors and forensic experts has found "direct evidence" of "systematic torture and killing" by the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime, the lawyers on the team say in a new report.
Their report, based on thousands of photographs of dead bodies of alleged detainees killed in Syrian government custody, would stand up in an international criminal tribunal, the group says.
CNN's "Amanpour" was given the report in a joint exclusive with The Guardian newspaper.
READ THE FULL REPORT HERE.
Photographer describes his 81 days of captivity in Syria
By Mick Krever, CNN
The first five weeks of photographer Jonathan Alpeyrie’s captivity among Syrian rebels were the most difficult.
“They would force me to wrestle with them, to show me how tough they were, and they snapped my ribs on the right so I couldn’t breathe for a while,” he told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Wednesday.
It was “just amusement” to them, he said.
“I was handcuffed for about five weeks, to a bed mostly; and the first three weeks, I was blindfolded.”
At least 29 journalists were killed in Syria last year, and some 60 others abducted.
Alpeyrie was kidnapped by an armed rebel group at a checkpoint near Damascus last April. He would be held for 81 days.
No countries wanted to destroy Syria’s chemical weapons on land, so the U.N. is doing it at sea
By Mick Krever, CNN
In an “unprecedented” situation, Syria’s declared chemical weapons will be destroyed not inside a country, but at sea, Sigrid Kaag, who is overseeing the operation for the U.N. and its chemical weapons body, told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Wednesday.
“In an effort to find member states willing to assist in this process and basically lend their territory for the destruction process, no member states stepped forward,” Kaag said.
As a result the U.N. is being forced to do it on board ships, on the high sea, in international territory.
“Yes it’s unique,” she said, “but we are reassured of course by the U.S. and other member states it’s technically very feasible, it’s viable, and otherwise it wouldn’t be happening.”
The Assad regime delivered the first batch of chemical weapons onto a Danish commercial ship on Tuesday, after missing a December 31 deadline.
U.S. Ambassador: Syrian opposition needs 'credible & legitimate delegation' in Geneva
Stay-at-home dad analyzes Syria videos from couch in England
By Mick Krever, CNN
With Syria the most dangerous country in the world for journalists, how do we have any idea what is going on?
There are thousands – perhaps even hundreds of thousands – of videos posted on social media of the war. But most people have no idea where to start in analyzing them, journalists included.
Enter Eliot Higgins, a stay-at-home British father who, as an amateur sleuth tracking hundreds of videos a day, has become a source for everyone from the New York Times to the British Foreign Office.
Working mostly from the couch of his home in Leicester, England, he studies videos for details about things like weapon type as evidence in how the war is developing and who is responsible for what.
He blogs online under the pseudonym “Brown Moses.”
“I was, like many people, discussing stuff online about conflicts and current events and I was looking at Libya quite closely,” he told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Monday. “And there was a lot of stuff coming out from Libya from social media, tweets and videos that were just being completely ignored.”
“So I thought, why not put them in one place?”
Syrian rebel leader denies he fled
By Hala Gorani and Ana Bickford, CNN
A top Syrian rebel commander denies that he abandoned his post and says he is working to resolve fighting among opposition groups in the country's north, he told CNN on Thursday.
In the meantime, a decision by the United States and Britain to halt nonlethal aid makes sense, said Salim Idriss, chief of staff of the Free Syrian Army.
Several U.S. administration officials had said that the fate of Idriss, a top rebel commander supported by the West, was uncertain as conflicts persisted between the Free Syrian Army and Islamist groups.
Idriss denied reports that he fled to a Gulf state after the Islamic Front allegedly seized a warehouse held by the Free Syrian Army.
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