the stuff that set you up to date sow have more at the top of the hour in the meantime of course there's always the website that's the w. dot com of the tax. cut. cut. cut cut cut cut. cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut. off so her first day at school in the jungle. your first climbing less of them in the door as grandma was arrives. to join your ranting on her journey back to freedom. in our interactive documentary tour of interacting returns home to move on t w dot com tanks.

some viewers may find the following content disturbing. and in need to hide with no amount of what i usually it was. since the arab spring swept syria twenty eleven tens of thousands of people have been arrested. nobody knows the true figure or how many are still held captive in the government's dungeons.

i'm a career servant in the field of international criminal justice. i want to the yugoslavia tribunal rwanda tribunal i was the first investigator at the international criminal court. as will be the final act in my career. will wiley and his team of war crimes investigators have been smuggling material out of syria to a secret location in europe. we've extract about six hundred thousand pages of regime documentation. this all of potential evidence abandoned by the syrian regime could help build the case for a prosecution before the international criminal court. the king or queen if you will of evidence and any international criminal investigation is always documentation it isn't really easily cross-examined it

because it's it's factual it's truth. in the kind of papers the canadian investigator has found thousands of internal communications relating to mass arrests. tens of thousands of syrians have been tortured into account in the regime's jails since twenty eleven. are arrests and disappearances part of a systematic government policy. we're trying to lay the foundations for prosecution along in the lines where the prosecutors can lead with heavy heavy irrefutable documentary material. stephen rock former u.s. ambassador at large for war crimes has prosecuted some of the worst mass atrocity crimes in recent history he's working with bill wiley on the case. it was said nurnberg that the nazis were. marginally convicted on their own documentary

evidence. country its life to journalists who have documented matter they document things that even implicate within seto to build a case against president assad or any other individual and we went where the documents took us. the paper trail first led to the protests that began in syria in twenty eleven and to the fate of many of those who had taken to the streets. yes we must the mother is sure it is off. the ship the five of us here. at the mouth of the. gun.

but months or. most only came from a middle class leftwing family who had been targeted by the syrian regime for decades for wanting a democratic change. they opposed the authoritarian rule of the assad clan that had governed syria with an iron fist for over forty years. and in twenty eleven the arab spring swept across syria. because. since two thousand the lot. i'll bet is that the hate they have. while all the. while. the mother and

father. of. that child the one of nabby now nor. maher on her teacher from damascus was a supporter of the regime and a member of president assad's ruling baath party. but her youngest son. a dentistry graduate joined the protests. a second. something. got its use of the i welcome when you see any. kind of cheered for how the media anyway. although mario opposed the demonstrations at first she was won over by her sons and through zeroes. the news just saw her son. you don't want him out was sure what he said any faster how he can annoy. us and what

they got into here because all. it. was. going to come on the cost side and child abuse in the country. yeah i mean no there were any mini anyhow to three feet. into the into out. from the very outset president assad's forces responded by shooting protesters killing scores of people. but the regime's violent repression just brought more protesters out onto the streets. ah ha just looked like it was losing control it issued an order to arrest people on an unprecedented scale.

war crimes investigators have pieced together what happened behind the scenes. among the six hundred thousand pages of smuggled syrian intelligence documents they discovered this. this is the key document which sets out the policy of the regime after several months of protests it sets out the categories of persons to be detained for interrogations soul in particular finance years of demonstrations persons who instigate demonstrations and persons who communicate with foreign media or international organizations who as it says here tarnish the image of syria. the order came from the top of the syrian regime from a central crisis management cell set up to deal with the protests the investigators

have thousands of documents showing it was passed all the way down the chain of command. the regime was hammering peaceful protesters. and security forces made mass arrests and the regime created more detention facilities to cope with the influx of detainees hospitals became part of the system . one of them was to shareen military hospital in damascus. muhammadan homuth worked at the hospital for the regime he's a defector he had an emergency department and was there when some of the first protesters were brought in by the security forces. and so long for the. alleged gunman went for. your much.

south. of. canada. that you'll get a bill had a lot. of other things. that they do but i had a lot of. what the twenty five double. over. more than two hundred thousand people were arrested in a matter of months. my own son and him started working for a syrian human rights group documenting the disappearances. the first time i met i i was in my office and he was coming to me joke and i me was like smiling he has like just been smart. i thought he was a funny and he was

a very nice. man sort of omani and am had only been working at the human rights organization for a month when their offices were raided by the security forces. soldiers were coming in like they were in a button field they were cutting grass fields pointing at us the right roles we were all shocked is that neither sons will feel. i think the americans killed their own. men. i'm spent i mean i was a week. in the. the air force intelligence branch admits a military airport in damascus where i am months or in their colleagues were taken is the science of one of the most notorious detention facilities in syria. some of us were like destroyed. we were of course and.

i have been was different really he was like smiling trying to make a smart he would you want to just to sing with him all the time after a month monsoon or an am war moved to another detention facility. because. they were beating him or it was like. they used to come the soldiers used to come. where is the doctor that's what they say so each time he came in he had two or three open wounds and the other the rest of his body is red or blue he changed he he was silent all the time. maybe because of the of the beating he was going to cause he suffered so much. i don't

know how he had of that. meanwhile a muslim who had also come to the attention of the security forces for organizing protests in his hometown. he fled to damascus to evade capture. investigators have thousands of arrest lists of who was wanted by the regime. we're asking them to search through them for muslims name. ok so we've gotta hit here. it's no mater. what's been logged here is a note dated january two thousand and twelve in the katyn that a certain moslem. and indeed certain of his associates should be picked up or detained if they come across him what effectively they're saying is we're looking for him and if you come across him arrested. in march

twenty two alone for muslims in a cafe with his nephews after they would help supply baby formula to a besieged area you. cannot buy the machine. on the whole of. the lama lushness and ups. had while song that. i was so i said in a way. that was me on the. bum wish me. well as and now i love.

film so. not a lot. more. yeah i mean. that's real not. merely for. victor that are far. from the norm or they're. going to not it's law in law or to look at me or. to look at me at our. fever or my shift. or the book at home to sit. on the mother death off what. i thought he would be doing your bit of the soul of life. love all your flock for weave which walk a.

block of luck. will. look at this i love our luck with life in the ritual for. the further i would her could. only have believed in the ground the picture that i think that the. dead of mark that have been a part. of the. model here should the whole. collection evolve. kind of human or. i should burke. the best of my insight definition of. what i did in a column of force if. i could have shut the. protests of a thought that we could in a southern us we have to look to half of all of the have no concern here

well about why they know that this was sort of. poor marcia button it all about janet. up i learned that the hospital. and have you fear for people who did that. to your lobby for a lobby. well. but .

there. you know secret location in europe bill wiley's investigators are building a criminal case against the syrian regime. using their cash of smuggled intelligence documents. they've interviewed hundreds of people whose names appear on the regime's arrest lists and interrogation notes. the treatment of detainees in different parts of the country did not differ in any substantial way too many people have been physically abused two people have been psychologically abused twenty people died in detention of unnatural causes. to say

that there's anything else but a widespread and indeed systematic. practice of abuse. witnesses say the abuses weren't confined to the detention centers even when they were sent to hospital for treatment to torture continued. muslim says he was so severely beaten that he was urinating blood. he was taken to a military hospital close to the detention facility hospital six zero one. zero. zero zero. zero that this. blast little less than what i would like it. clear that.

flight. we just had a second but just as laid down it looks it just. so we're up so it has had that when it. has had a glass of gin by posting here for the jolly yet. so as i lie down that's the way i like that idea in the bottle look local almost got a handle that i left for the sphere stuff that this was what a sandwich. hospital six or one is less than a kilometer from president assad's promise. detainees were also taken to the to sri

military hospital where mohammad was working for the regime. people with the counties up. and what the police be shushed be a live up the woods or make up the woods hole in the shaheed. cellar. for how do. we set a mule he had more know your. a canoe and a lot of mana and yeah a lot of all the fifty year high all the for you have a short book for kali i'm out of your cookbook amana up the cabbage on that and i'm unstoppable already. i don't want to if you had. for your a young. feature in the last few months just for a few minutes for but the more. i learned that a part of me it's sort of an evolving as a bit of fashion. hospitals are implicated in the regime is own records.

for example war crimes investigators have found this memo from detectives in one province to their superiors complaining of a problem. quote parents and relatives of the arrested persons are daily asking about the fate of sons fathers and brothers you want to listen to what they have to say the hospital refrigerator is full of unidentified corpses that have disintegrated since they have been there for a long period of time and what's particularly interesting in this case is that this individual has copied the minister of justice so this localized problem is being brought to the attention of damascus. that means the syrian regime knows exactly what's going on. it knows who has been detained and

what has happened to them but they refuse to give any information to the families. tens of thousands of people are thought to be still missing in detention including over two thousand children. sometimes prisoners are released. from sun am was freed after three months but monsoor and his cell mates were kept in jail without any contact with the outside world. i talked to them or you said to them i want to do something that's more than what we need to keep it secret wizard. i told him we have like. fifty seven people here and we need to rhodes all their names with details as much as possible so when someone of us go out country those names with them so we

started like looking for the tools. they tore off pieces of their shirts found a fragment of chicken bone to write with and used rust and their own blood as ink. and who started collecting names and writing them every day all the names were between use who were already that somebody could leak this news division or it's likely came military information to the enemy because the names of the dinies in a mature place is secret information you could be i am told that if they knew about it. meanwhile my arm son a ham was back at university doing his master's thesis in dentistry. it was there where six months after his release members of the students' union aligned to the regime kidnapped him and handed him over to military intelligence. he was taken to

detention facility two one five. on. us it's not that any of that there are found in the nie i mean i mean that in fact on the neverland. and in the mean death of ordinary man if we were usually it was who cannot. admit all of them not all of the one year and there is that little and a lot of them i miss you. but now i am did not give up risking arrest herself she continued to press the regime for information about her missing son. by this time monsoor had secretly documented the names of his fellow detainees on scraps of cloth. now they had to find a way to smuggle them out of jail. one

of us he was a tailor and he said i can do it i can put it inside the hem of the shirt and inside the corners and it will not appear so nobody will suspect it we bleached to each other that the first one who will be of out will wear it i don't think it's out of. my name was called it was me. months or got the names out. when i look at those should be says written of blood blood of people who are still there some of them i knew i got the news there are loads. i have their blood with me i have now dreading government. service or i feel that it's filled with swords with their swords. i

called many families and their families need to know at least they have the right to know if their sons are dead or alive. eighteen months after a ham disappeared man was still searching for him. she constantly requested information about him from the military police. i meant any only you know she had. to sign off of my kit in seattle. the assistant gave my arm this is not. enough i. think ima just sit let me were sitting there sort of fatah just says all just so it all so high e. it was an intimate and down c.m.l. hello matthew and. the note says that they had corpse number three hundred twenty

died on november eleventh twenty twelve only six days after he had been arrested. all this time the regime had known he was dead but refused to tell her. like other detainees families mario must finally given a death certificate stating that her son had simply died of a heart attack in a hospital. but she refused to believe that version of events and was determined to find out the truth. had the finale contam bizarre you know what i. knew is but i knew who to feel we've been in the battle but. you know me in particular. had. this in the muscle and i can have that assess if he.

would. know that oak leaf and then she had him in the. pam's still unexplained death is symbolic of the fate of many critics of us as are . thousands of syrians still disappear into the network of detention centers across the country but the regime stubbornly continues to deny any allegations of torture . until a defector from the regime provided proof code named caesar his identity was kept secret. he said he had been a member of the syrian military police working as a forensic photographer at the sri military hospital and hospital six o one. he escaped from syria with thousands of photographs. the regime had been painstakingly documenting its own crimes. the caesar

photographs show the corpses of almost seven thousand people who died in regime custody one of them is corpse three hundred twenty from detention center two one five. i looked at the dome i knew it was him it was him it was his or use a riff and. i missed him and. so what has it to sort out in the man big news in gravity is acutely aware of the harm done i do widely and. new news for the new model has allowed to.

go on in most of the most just most famous just. who. are here and i mean the ms martin was shot and then into kind of incident should pull up so that the reverse itself volatile would in the mindy a battle of. who . is going to geneva to demonstrate outside the united nations building and call for the release of syria's disappeared detainees. he'll wear the flag of the revolution around his shoulders.

these are printed out photos to take with him in some cases there are entire families like this photo of a syrian just champion with her husband and children. though they're all in prison . miles and was released after eighteen months in detention and now lives in the netherlands but several close family members are still missing in a sense prison's he doesn't know if they're dead or alive. it's five years to the day the tro tests began in syria as muslims fellow travellers had to geneva to khartoum demonstrations. that are still sitting in the songs of the syrian revolution. let's. close. it.

like my eyes and many of them were detained and tortured. some have had their homes destroyed all of them have friends or family who've been disappeared by the syrian regime. they're determined to get their loved ones free. kick it out yakob get it a. bit because. that will. be all. in all though the.

tens of thousands of people are missing without a trace. the un has accused the syrian government of the murder rape torture and systematic extermination of detainees all crimes against humanity but a security council resolution to refer syria to the international criminal court was vetoed by russia and china. miles and his colleagues are also campaigning for the release of civilians held by groups fighting assad's regime the so-called islamic state and other islam is to groups. will come on television and now us. i'm sure. we saw that still sell it. but the effectiveness of such campaigns is still open to

question. the syrian regime is still locking up its political opponents. steven rattner former u.s. ambassador at large for war crimes issues is suing the assad regime. in syria as it is for justice he's trying to bring public attention to the victims in the seas our photographs in exhibitions around the world. and i want to thank you for being here tonight to bearing witness to these. and stating your solidarity with these very. rapid is frustrated by the failure of the un to act on the overwhelming evidence of the syrian regime's crimes. we're talking about the security services for much state security without military

security without good air force intelligence within the chain of command official forces this is silly this is the clearest case that i've ever seen this is abundant evidence that we've got more so much more that maybe. it's embarrassing going away to protect quezon so we've got no court to thank but there is one route to justice and rap is pursuing it hundreds of syrian families have identified their loved ones from the season photographs if just one of the thousands of victims was found to be a european national or one of the perpetrators of these crimes was found on european soil that would present a way of opening a case against the syrian regime in a european court. how is your health and everything you feeling ok yeah ok as much as it is helping right the case trying to identify

members of the regime who have slipped into europe. he very much wants to be a public witness and that record's good to great rescue so why after all of us to do this to us to me what more can you really do i remember women who whose children have been killed came to speak to me in another conflict zone and then later that day dismissed by security forces. who threatened them and said just go ahead and kill us just kill us now we can't tell a story. and so there is that point never witnessed reach which makes it hard for any student discount the truth coming. out of them nor lesson so they have mourned in a him with an eyewitness and i didn't know king and dean was

a. nice thought feel the norm theming know me at the well i left me. with you know how came you know said ross and for all of me you could. hardly. hear him and his so sad that man. i'm sick of being the sheriff we. miss him a little we don't seem. to know that and. much of what the dirty and the young thinking. like most of the families whose loved ones have died in detention i'm still has no idea what happened to her son's body. and the one who will

be. miserable i am being measured and multiply. and i meant new look great how come the sun said look this is the in this is a concept here normally i mean more going on with us president assad still denies any wrongdoing the photos when confronted with the seas are photographs like this was his response oh very high pictures with a very funny but they're not edited in photoshop it's all just propaganda just taking you with they want to do when i proceed in government in every way you can have any individual crime it happening over the world anywhere but it's not the policy. amnesty international estimates that between twenty eleven and twenty fifteen up to thirteen thousand people were executed it says in one prison alone

said nyah mass hanging's were authorized by the highest levels of government i don't know what's goes on in that prison have you been there no i haven't been in the presidential part of what it was because. when i asked about any other allegations aside refused to comment. on the. forward he community anything thinking she found i was workin hard to win. you know that's a sitting on the docket for concentration camp officer stuff and we don't expect a fashion so that's what we have come up processes or account of based upon probably evidence that they themselves don't want to hear and jack. then suddenly there's a breakthrough. this ister of one of the victims in the series are photographs is a syrian spanish dual national and is filing a case against the syrian regime for the torture and murder of her brother claiming

that she is also a victim of the crime. i'm a dana run on a renowned international human rights lawyer has taken on the case she and grant are filing it today in spain's national court in madrid. the charge is state terrorism when the state itself use those institutions to terrorize their own people basically to send a message if you dare rise up to their demand your hurt your god given rights you're going to be tortured. steven wright and the legal team are naming nine individuals in the complaint including the leaders of syria's intelligence and security services part of president assad's inner circle. the focus will now turn to getting arrest warrants to apprehend the alleged perpetrators if they ever leave syria this is the beginning of justice for those

souls of those victims. of the court case may bring justice for the dead the urgent need is to free those still inside. those who are detained to be free and able are still getting close to the. we all know this we have evidence where pulled out while doing nothing about. the south africa. little wonder. why was this. hot. shot of us at the moment. oh i know if it.

was the live dog. when they die that sucker. i mean. the trouble. with. the markets. did more to.

me your major just. thirty minutes on d w. it's a plan b. our fighters want to start families to become farmers or engineers every one of them has a plan would be an issue for you. summoning is just the children who have already been the boy and those that will follow are part of a new. time they could be the future of. the. granting opportunities global news that matters d. w. made for minds playing. big fun beethoven. his work that god is for tonight. the

monstrous and things. gone twenty. years. this is the w.'s live from carlin their coach rockin love takes the bright but germany's disastrous world cup before but. it was almost out. of challenge perfected not find. even more but yet a departure first i should have realized that we needed to be less risky and if you will find out what this means for germany's national team also.