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some viewers may find the following content disturbing. and in the new. no amount of who are 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. this 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 cache 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. 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 wrap 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 widely on the case. it was said nurnberg that the nazis were. marginally convicted on their own documentary

evidence. yeah i'm from truth it's the life of the german so i can document matt a document things that even implicate so we didn't set out to build a case against president assad or any other individual 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 were taken to the streets. yes we must mother is sure it is. still a bit of of us here.

but not so of the. most and came from a middle class left wing family who had been targeted by the syrian regime for decades for wanting 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. the scene to film a lot. but it's us to have a a. while. while.

the mullet and going in the last five hundred south adam scott that most of. the wanted nabby and north. marianna teacher from damascus was a supporter of the regime and a member of president assad's ruling ballots party. but her youngest son a hunk a dentistry graduate joined the protests. of second time so. something . kind of the i welcomed me as a any. kind of cheers from haven't been seen anyway. although mario opposed the demonstrations at first she was won over by her sons and threw zeros on. the news just last sunday. you don't want him i was sure what he said any faster how he can and no hustlers and what

they got into here will cause all to get it. because of the money side of me and child abuse in the country. yeah i mean you know that the only image anyhow to three feet. insistent into hip hop 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 ha just looked like it was losing control it issued an order to arrest people on an unprecedented scale. comes.

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. the 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 screen military hospital in damascus. mohamed on how it 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. for the for the. the lead gunman went. out of the. jetty.

south. of you are there bill geddie. can address that. you'll get a bill had a lot. of. those what i had left off and a lot of. and i do you know what i mean the kind model be not what the twenty five the well. thought out of the could only. more than two hundred thousand people were arrested in a matter of months. my own son and started working for a syrian human rights group documenting the disappearances. the first time i met. i was in my office and he was coming to me joking and he was like smiling he has like speech and smart i thought he was funny and he was very nice.

monsoor. romani 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 russians we were all shocked is that neither sounds filthy and. i think. the men. spent i mean i'm sure we. can make things easier we'll highlight. the air force intelligence branch admits a military airport in damascus or a ham months or in their colleagues were taken is the site of one of the most notorious detention facilities in syria. some of us were like destroyed.

we were of course. was different really he was like smiling trying to make us smile he would he said he wanted us to sing with them all the time after a month months or and they were 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 but what they said 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 other beating he was getting because he suffered so much. i don't

know how he handled it. meanwhile a muslim 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 ask them to search through them for muslims name. ok so we've gotta hit here. it's a must no mater. what's been logged here is a note dated january two thousand and twelve indicating that a certain moslem all the martyr 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 my arrest.

in march twenty twelve muslim was in a cafe with his nephews after they'd help supply baby formula to a besieged area. can i buy the missile. on the example of how the lama watches sit ups. for focus on the blast now born in baghdad to see it had whilst. i was so i thought we're in a way. that. i didn't know it's me i'm. the most need. for it now i was on this then i love. this work but not on. film so. not

a lot. more. not. and there are many things. because that over there that are far. from the norm are there. not it's not held him up or to look at me or. to look a mirror up. all my shoes i know who i know because i have a sitter or merely mother did i got offered. but i thought he might be doing a bit of the soul of life. love. your flock for weed which was. bach of luck.

i love our luck with life you talk. i would her could. only have the nickname to that effect that the. dead if much but then you. have to. model a sign you're sure bashing. collection of all. kind of schumann or i should burke it that far of the inside janet of. i think in a poem of course if i could have shot more. protests of that liquid in a sudden earth they had to look. half of all of the half muck and so here

well about why they know that this was sort of. poor marsh all about janet who know how up. a look at that death of hospital. and how do you fear the people who did that. to your lovely. well i learn from them and you will run off but the cloud.

all the fat. you know secret location in europe bill wiley's investigators are building a criminal case against the syrian regime. using their cache 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 too many people died in detention of unnatural causes. that 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 eight. zero. zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero that is it. plus a little less. clear that.

we are. just a thought secular but just as lead to think tipping existence. so would. have that where this has had a glass of gin but i post here for the job. so after i lay down that's the way i just like it in the bottle look local over how much better head off that i left for. than the small one is a sick meal. hospital six or one is less than a kilometer from president of santa promise. detainees were also taken to the to

sri military hospital where mohammad was working for the regime. people with the counties up bolger har and what the police. a b a a live up the woods or made up the woods hole in the shaheed the open cover. of the cellar. for how the what. was that and you'll hear more now your. a lot and a lot of my mama and. i me and i'm all the figure how you're all the for you have a short book for kelly i'm out of your cookbook a man a few up the capitol dome and i'm a. market but i don't want to if you had the macand for your a young to be under. no future in the last few months that's for the most just for but the more. i learned that a part of me it's sort of an evolving civil fashion. spittles are implicated in the

regime is own records. for example of 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 months or and his cell mates were kept in jail without any contact with the outside world. i talked to them i use it to them i want to do something that's more than what we need to keep it secret this is ok. i told him we have like . fifty seven people here and we need to write all their names and details as much as possible so when some one of us go out can take those names with

them so we started 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 he started collecting names and writing them everything all the names of victims who were worried that somebody could leak this news division or it's likely came military formation to the enemy because the names of the demeans animal to place is secret information you could be having tore it 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 for six months after his release members of the students' union aligned to the regime that kidnapped him and handed him over to military intelligence. he was

taken to a detention facility to one in five. on the. us it's article that me and that there are found in the nie i mean i mean if it's on the neverland and in the immediate death and with old narmada from what i usually it was who goes out i'll admit all of them not all up the one here and there that little and then one of them i miss you. but niam 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. inside the hem of the shirt and inside the corners. so nobody will suspect if we blitzed to each other the first one who will. take it out of her. was called. months or got the names out. of those should be says written of blood blood of people who are still there some of them i knew i got the news. i have their blood with me i have the outrage.

i feel it is filled with swords with their swords. i called many families and their families need. to know at least i would like to know if their sons are dead or alive. eighteen months after i am disappeared still searching for and. she constantly requested information about him from the military police. i meant any only and knew she had. to sign off of my get the disease. the assistant gave my arm this not. enough. to thank him and just let me were sitting. just says lol just so it all so high e. it will not in the meantime can see i'm a little mit and. the note says that they have 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 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 finally condemn bizarre you know what i think. but. no who is to feel i. am in the battle but. you know me in particular. had. this in the muscle and then had to assess if she knew.

where there was a humble. lead that oakley phonied that then she had an emmy. 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 additionally military hospital and hospital six o one. he escaped from syria with thousands of photographs. the regime had been painstakingly documenting its own crimes. missy's are

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 dorm room i knew the two of them it was him it was his or use a roof and. i missed him and. so what has this for the sort of in the one week gratitude acutely over the hum of the man who whine and new news for you here in new model has a lot to. like. go to most of the

most famous just. who. be here and i mean the one. and then into kind of in synch with pull up sort of the leave this is us a little with mindy a bit of. who . muzza non-home model 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. they're all imprisoned. 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 prisons he doesn't know if they're dead or alive. it's five years to the day the protests began in syria as muslims fellow travelers had to geneva to take part in demonstrations. that are still cygnus songs of the syrian revolution. let. alone.

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. yeah. yeah i'm ticket. it a. bit i. feel. in the off. the south a lot of us out of the wealth on. what 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 most groups. will come on tell us will announce. that janet. so i. mean so 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. stephen ross former u.s. ambassador at large for war crimes issues is suing the assad regime. in syria as it is for just he's trying to bring public attention to the victims in the seas are 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 u.n. to act on the overwhelming evidence of the syrian regime's crimes. we're talking about the security services which are much state security without

military security without the air force intelligence within the chain of command official forces this is silly this is the clearest case that i've ever seen and this is abundant evidence that we've got more so much more that maybe. it's embarrassing the way to protect ways of saying 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 but 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 certified after you've done all this to 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 comfort zone and then later that day proceeded by security forces. who threatened out and said just go ahead and kill us just kill us we can't tell a story. and so there is that point that witnesses really true it sure makes it hard for americans to discount the truth coming. out of them nor let them since they have mourned only one was that night and if it

was and they didn't you know tina do you know most of. these thought feel the norm theming know me at the well i left and outside. with you know how i came in said ross and for all of me you could hearken. to him and his side that night and. hear the music of the show and we. miss him a little does he. know that and. much of what that outstanding 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 lose and

be. miserable i am being measured and multiply. i mean i meant new look great how come the show said look you listed in the end you know this is a concert here normally i mean you could move on go on she did was not so president assad still denies any wrongdoing when confronted with the seas are photographs like this was his response over the five pictures with a very fine but they're not it in for the for the just propaganda just faking you with they want to do when i proceed in government in every war you can have any individual crime it happened over the world anywhere but it's not the policy. feministing 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 look into this because. when i asked about any other allegations assad refused to comment. on mclean on the. phone he community anything can see from honest work and a hundred would. not say sitting on the docket there are over but their concentration camp grounds are still and we don't expect compassion so that's why we have come up processes to hold people accountable as the program it is that they themselves don't want to hear and jack. then suddenly there's a breakthrough. this is to her of one of the victims in the series of 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. m a dana brown under a renowned international human rights lawyer has taken on the case she and russia are filing into doing in spain's national court in madrid. the charge is state terrorism what the state itself use those institutions to terrorize their own people basically to send a message if you dare rise up to their demands or search your god given rights you're going to be tortured and murdered. stephen ross 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

circles victims. of the court case may bring justice for the dead the urgent need is to free those still inside we need those who are detained to be free and able are still getting most of them out of their go and we all of us we have evidence we have proof that while doing nothing while the. sop why were they so when the guy you have to deal before that bush out of this at the moment can live issue for the oh we tell all i know if it. i lost

a lot of dog. a little south when they died that saga over the what i call. the beatles legacy. becomes an illustrated journey she told. the sun everybody knows the facts. but two british graphic artists know them. they wrote their own in school. moments

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the penetrant on d. w. . visited over here is live from buffalo and powerful storms on opposite sides of the world put millions in the path of thank you. cards from flows begins to last the u.s. east coast the slow moving storm poses a lethal threat pounding the region with rain and storm surges meanwhile a super typhoon is rolling towards the northern philippines mass evacuation of

coastal provinces hop.